Over the past two decades, a wide gap in pay has arisen between medica

Between (A) and (D), (D) seems to repeat what premise says whereas (A) tells us about the conclusion? AndrewN

There are 2 positions stated in the above passage:
1. Public and nonprofit agencies will be able to entice these professionals to return to public health jobs if salaries are made commensurate with those paid in the private sector.

2. The quality of medical care provided by public and nonprofit agencies will thus be improved.

I was focused on the latter position, the one about quality of care and that's how I ended up marking Option A when it came down to selecting between Option A or D.

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma : how can I avoid such a situation, going forward?

Posted from my mobile device

Public vs private - big money difference
Many professionals have left public and gone to private
If salaries are made comparable, the professionals will be enticed to return
Quality of medical care provided by public sector will be improved

To establish the above, what is presumed?


(A) The experience obtained by medical professionals in private clinics and hospitals will be especially important in the public health arena.

The argument doesn't talk about less or more experience anywhere. It just says that let's get those "professionals" back to improve quality. Will the experience gained by them while in private sector help? We don't know.

(B) How well public and nonprofit health agencies perform depends for the most part upon the experience level of their health professionals.

Again, as we discussed above, "experience" is not being considered in the argument. We lost many professionals because they were being paid less; now we just want them back by giving them higher salaries. This will help improve quality.

(C) Unless public and nonprofit health agencies act, the salaries paid to medical professionals in private practice will continue to outpace those paid in the public health arena.

Will private salaries continue to outpace pubic salaries in future, we don't know.

(D) Medical health professionals who moved from the public sector to the private sector would change jobs again.

We are claiming that if we raise salaries in public sector, quality of public sector will improve. So we are assuming that the professionals will change their jobs again and come back. Correct.

(E) If the pay disparity between the public and private medical sectors continues to increase, many doctors and nurses will move from private practice to the public health area.

Incorrect. If pay disparity continues, it is likely that more professionals will move from public to private sector but in any case, we cannot say what will happen in the future.

Answer (D)

Hello, lakshya14. I will admit that when I read the passage, I thought the assumption might be that higher-quality doctors, nurses, and other health professionals were leaving the public sector in favor of the private sector, but that was not an answer choice. You will note that the passage simply states that many health professionals have jumped ship, so to speak, and made the switch. I thought the passage conflated higher salaries with higher quality, but so much for pre-thinking. I did still go with (D), though, and I wanted to discuss (A) more in depth in hopes that you will understand what rules it out.


First off, the experience referred to is that which has come exclusively from time spent in private practice, completely ignoring any experience the health professionals may have had prior to leaving the public sphere. The passage drives at luring more professionals—through salary incentives—back to the public domain to improve the quality of medical care, but nowhere does it indicate that the experience gained within their private practice will be a crucial component to such an improvement. So, can we call such experience especially important? I would say no.

Meanwhile, (D) is a valid assumption. The reason provided for health professionals leaving the public sphere to begin with is the wide gap in pay. Since the passage goes on to argue that decreasing that pay gap would entice these professionals to return to public health jobs, we have to assume that such professionals would actually be willing to switch back to public practice for the argument to hold that the quality of medical care provided by public and nonprofit agencies will thus be improved. Choice (D) is not a simple restatement of what the passage says. There is still a missing link between the offer of more money and improved public healthcare. (That is, just because something is enticing, we cannot say that it will succeed in luring its target.)

I hope that helps. Pardon the later response, but I was running behind yesterday.

- Andrew

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.