Medicare, the United States government’s health insurance program for

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended core meaning of this sentence is that Medicare covers the full cost of home health care but does not cover the full cost of other nonhospital services, for which beneficiaries must pay 20 percent of the costs.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Verb Forms + Modifiers + Parallelism + Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• Any elements linked by a conjunction ("but" in this case) must be parallel.
• "where" is only used to refer to a physical location.
• The introduction of present participle ("verb+ing"- “making” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.
• "who/whose/whom/which/where", when preceded by a comma, refers to the noun just before the comma.

A: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between "of home health care" and "with other nonhospital services"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("but" in this case) must be parallel. Further, Option A incorrectly refers to "nonhospital services" with "where"; please remember, "where" is only used to refer to a physical location. Additionally, Option A uses the passive voice construction "20 percent of the costs must be paid by beneficiaries", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

B: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "making beneficiaries pay 20 percent of the costs"; the use of the "comma + present participle ("verb+ing" - "making" in this sentence)" construction incorrectly implies that Medicare covers the full cost of home health care but does not cover the full cost of other nonhospital services, and as a result makes beneficiaries pay 20 percent of the costs; the intended meaning is that Medicare covers the full cost of home health care but does not cover the full cost of other nonhospital services, for which beneficiaries must pay 20 percent of the costs; please remember, the introduction of present participle ("verb+ing"- “making” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.

C: Correct. This answer choice correctly refers to "other nonhospital services" with "for which...costs" - conveying the intended meaning - that Medicare covers the full cost of home health care, but it does not cover the full cost of other nonhospital services, and for these services, beneficiaries must pay 20 percent of the costs. Further, Option C correctly maintains parallelism between "of home health care" and "of other nonhospital services". Additionally, Option C avoids the incorrect usage of "where" seen in Option A, as it does not utilize "where". Besides, Option C is free of any awkwardness and redundancy.

D: This answer choice incorrectly refers to "full cost of home health care" with "which is unlike...other beneficiaries", illogically implying that Medicare covers the full cost of home health care, and this cost is unlike other nonhospital services in that beneficiaries must pay 20 percent of this cost; the intended meaning is that Medicare covers the full cost of home health care, but it does not cover the full cost of other nonhospital services, and beneficiaries must pay 20 percent of the costs for other nonhospital services; remember, "who/whose/whom/which/where", when preceded by a comma, refer to the noun just before the comma. Further, Option D uses the passive voice construction "20 percent of the costs must be paid by beneficiaries", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

E: This answer choice incorrectly refers to "full cost of home health care" with "which is unlike...costs", illogically implying that Medicare covers the full cost of home health care, and this cost is unlike the other nonhospital services that make beneficiaries pay 20 percent of their costs; the intended meaning is that Medicare covers the full cost of home health care, but it does not cover the full cost of other nonhospital services, and beneficiaries must pay 20 percent of the costs for other nonhospital services; remember, "who/whose/whom/which/where", when preceded by a comma, refer to the noun just before the comma.

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Comma + Present Participle for Cause-Effect Relationship" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~3 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

This is a good question, one that (yet again) exemplifies the importance of understanding the meaning of the sentence.

I will definitely help you with choice B, but before I do that, you need to answer a few questions about the original choice.
Medicare, the United States government's health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, covers the full cost of home health care, but not with other nonhospital services where 20 percent of the costs must be paid by beneficiaries.

1: What does the sentence (original choice) tell us about Medicare coverage of cost of home health care?
2: What does the sentence (original choice) tell us about Medicare coverage of cost of other non-hospital services?

Once you answer the above questions for choice A, then answer the same questions for choice B
Medicare, the United States government's health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, covers the full cost of home health care but not of other non-hospital services, making beneficiaries pay 20 percent of the costs.
1: What does the sentence (original choice) tell us about Medicare coverage of cost of home health care?
2: What does the sentence (original choice) tell us about Medicare coverage of cost of other non-hospital services?
3: What makes beneficiaries pay 20% of the costs?

I will look forward to your responses.

Payal

Solve this question in 45 seconds straight:

-->Read the sentence as : Medicare covers the full cost of HHC,_____
Just breeze through the modifier, especially when it is in the non underlined part of the portion of an SC.

Context Medicare covers for thing 1, but it does not cover for thing 2.

Now, you know that but/which are your only two possible answer choices.
Which refers to the noun preceded by the word which. Hence, based on the context, you can eliminate D,E without analyzing too much.

Move to answer choices A,B,C
A) use of the word 'where' has to point to a physical location.
B) -Ing form set off by a comma refers to the whole clause, the subject, or shows the result of the preceding clause. or to say it simply -ing form here would mean that because medicare covers the full cost of home health care it is making beneficiaries pay 20% of the cost. Doesn't make sense.
C) Which here differs from 'which' in answer choices D,E. It points to other non hospital services for which extra money is paid same as in D,E, however, the modified noun did not state what the sentence meant to say.
Hence this answer choice, unlike D,E, is contextually correct

Hope this helps

We generally put "only" in front of the word or phrase we're modifying. The exception would be when we put it at the end of a phrase: "My band is in town for one night only." This is an expression, but it would still be correct to put "only" in front of what it's modifying--"one night." We put "only" at the end to show restrictions or limitations: "This album is for die-hard fans only," "This lane is for buses only," "Employees Only" (this would be on a sign and is not a sentence).

#1 You live only once.

"Only" modifies "once," which in turn modifies "live." It is saying that you live exactly one time.

#2 You only live once.

"Only" modifies "live." However, there isn't really a difference in meaning here, because "only once" was modifying "live' last time. As you've probably noticed these days with people posting "YOLO" everywhere, this is the preferred form for this expression.

#3 Only you live once.

*Now* we are modifying "you." Note that this means that you are literally the *only* one who lives once, at least in the context at hand.

I hope this helps!

Agree with age. Parellelism is the error.
".. full cost of... but not of.."

Is C the answer?

New learning for me - for which works as that.

Thanks.

IMHO. Choice B is a bit confusing. That is, the modifier can be taken to be modifying the entire clause. i.e It can mean something like "To cover the full cost for home health care but no hospital services, Medicare makes the beneficiaries pay 20%." As you see from the structure itself, this is not what the sentence wants to convey. The "paying 20%" modifier is meant for only "hospital services" and hence "which" or in this case "for which" is a better option.

This is my reasoning although I think an expert's opinion would shed better light.


Kudos Please... If my post helped.

The sentence should maintain parallelism between 'covers the full cost of' and 'but not of'

Nums99 That's right. Any modifier of the form "preposition + which" will still refer to the preceding noun.

IMO C....
|| ism ...full cost of home health care..........but not of....

In B..I think...particpal phrase ..."making benefeciaries pay...." modify nonhospital services....which changes the menaing ...bcoz it is not nonhospitla services,which is making benfeciaries pay...it is the insurance plan that doesn't cover such services...Plz elaborate if I m wrong...

i checked the web .. OA is indeed C

i think the problem with B is that sentence discusses the costs, which not covered by US govt, not the action that makes them pay 20%. so the correct choice is C. In B, 'making' focuses on the action.

Hi yt770

Please find below my comments:

1. When you join two independent clauses that tend to present contrasting pieces of information, you use "comma +but". However, it does NOT mean that this is the only use of "comma + but". But is a connector/conjunction that has many uses. For instance, take a look at the following sentence:

The play is good, but not that good.

The above sentence is a shortened version of a sentence taken from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/but. Of course it is not a GMAT like sentence, but the focus is on the use of "but" here. Essentially, the author has made a statement (The play is good) and then qualified it by using the "but" portion (but not that good). Such constructions are absolutely logical and grammatical. Nothing wrong with them.

2. As regards choice B in the Official Question, please check it from a meaning standpoint. So, let's take a look at the whole sentence this choice forms and compare it with the meaning given by the original choice:

A. Medicare, the United States government's health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, covers the full cost of
home health care, but not with other nonhospital services where 20 percent of the costs must be paid by beneficiaries.

As you can see, it is quite clear that from this section "where 20 percent of the costs must be paid by beneficiaries" in the underlined portion, the author intends to give us more information about the other non-hospital services. The author wants to convey that for these services the beneficiaries must pay 20% of the costs. So, if the costs for these other non-hospital services to a beneficiary is $100, then the beneficiary must pay $20 from his/her own pocket. (I have assumed that there is no ambiguity in your understanding of the meaning of the non-underlined section; however, please do let me know if you need more clarity on the same). However, does this connection come out clearly in choice B? Not at all. Why is that the case? Let's take a look at choice B now:

B. Medicare, the United States government's health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, covers the full cost of
home health care, but not of other nonhospital services, making beneficiaries pay 20 percent of the costs.

Now, as you have written in your reply, you considered the "but not of other nonhospital services" a part of the previous clause. Fair enough. Let's go with that understanding and see how "making beneficiaries pay 20 percent of the costs" adds to the meaning.

Essentially, we end up with the following structure:

Some insurance program covers the full cost of one type of services in a group, but not of the other services in the group, making beneficiaries pay 20 percent of the costs.

So, if we take "making beneficiaries pay 20 percent of the costs" to modify the previous clause, we end up saying that because the program covers full cost of X, but not of Y, beneficiaries pay 20% of the costs. My question to you is, which costs are being talked about at the end? Is it clear that we are talking only about the "other non-hospital services"?

You can also think of it this way, is it because the full-cost of home-services is covered (but not of other services) that the beneficiaries pay an amount? Does the action denoted by "cover" account for part, if not full, of the reason that the beneficiaries need to pay the 20%? This does not make much logical sense, right?

It is for the above reasons that Choice B fails to give a clear, logical meaning.

Hope the above analysis helps!

Cheers!

You answered your own question, jawele! In (B) and (D), "the costs" aren't specified. Do they refer to to the total costs? Just the costs of nonhospital services? There's no way to know, and the ambiguity is problematic - we can't be expected to read the writer's mind.

As you noted, in (C) the phrase "for which" must refer to the nonhospital services, so we know precisely what costs we're talking about.

In (A), the phrase "nonhospital services where 20 percent of the costs must be paid by beneficiaries" is incoherent. It sounds as though "nonhospital services" is a physical location where patients go to pay their bills! That doesn't make any sense. So (C) is the only option with a clear, logical meaning.

I hope that helps!

Will2020 Yes, the "which" modifier generally applies to the preceding noun, so both D and E are saying that home health care is unlike other nonhospital services. We might certainly argue that this is inherently wrong. The difference seems to be in what the provider will pay, not in the services themselves. However, there are specific flaws in both D and E.

D) Notice that this modifier is supposed to refer back to "home health care." It's saying that it's different from others in that 20% must be paid. However, we've just been told that the full cost is covered. This is contradictory. We can't take this modifier and apply it to the other services mentioned within the modifier.

E) First, this implies that the SERVICES THEMSELVES make beneficiaries pay 20%. Surely Medicare is doing this. Second, the essential modifier (THAT) serves to narrow down which services we're talking about, not to show a difference. In other words, it's saying "home health care is different from the services that make you pay 20%," but it's not clarifying that this payment amount IS the difference. This matters, since I might say "I'm different from my friends who went away to college IN THAT I was able to save a lot of money." In other words, the part that says "who went away to college" is just clarifying WHO I'm different from, not HOW I'm different. Similarly, "that make beneficiaries pay" is showing WHICH other nonhospital services we're comparing home health care to, but it doesn't yet clarify WHAT the difference is.

Here's the (B) version simplified.

Medicare ... covers the full cost of home health care, but not of other nonhospital services, making beneficiaries pay 20 percent of the costs.

The phrase "making ..." modifies everything that precedes it, and there's no issue with its modifying what precedes it. That modification is perfectly logical. After all, it could be logical to say that Medicare covers x, but not y, making beneficiaries pay 20 percent of the costs.

The issue with the modifier is that what "20 percent of the costs" refers to is not clear. Is it "20 percent of the costs" of "home health care" and "other nonhospital services," or is just "20 percent of the costs" of "other nonhospital services." The sentence does not clearly indicate which it is.

You could think about it this way. If you were to see that sentence in an important email about costs, you'd have to write back to the sender to ask for confirmation regarding what he or she means. So, the sentence does not effectively convey its meaning.

Less is more!

1) Identify that parallelism is at play here. The full cost of home health care covers the full cost of...*this* but not *of that*
You'll have to read the whole sentence to catch where exactly that cut off is
2) D & E are out as are A. B&C are in.
3) C has a comma, which means phrase after it is describing nonhospital services. This is true. The phrase after describes nonhospital services, and not the US health insurance program in general, which is what B does.

As I have mentioned in my previous post, making should NOT modify the entire clause... The additional charges are ONLY for the non hospital services and not for the entire program..