A government agency that reimburses its clients for bills they have pa

I understand why C is correct. It was my first choice..

But I don't understand why E is wrong!! If the budget is cut by more than 180 million, the plan will not work anyway..no?

Please help!!

@maive, it's great that C was your first choice and that you got this one correct! The problem with E is that it doesn't have any to do with causing financial harm to clients.

We're specifically told in the argument that the purpose of the plan is to avoid cutting reimbursements or harming clients financially. Even if the budget was cut by more than $180 million last year (the amount that they expect to earn back in interest with the new plan), there are still other things the agency could to save money without harming clients financially (cut employee salaries, move into cheaper office space, etc.)

Only answer choice C states that the forty-day delay will cause financial harm to some clients, so that's the best criticism of the plan.

Hope that helps!

I believe this is since E is not dampening the main concerns. The stated main concerns are- not to harm clients financially and cost cutting.

How can we assume that the government will pay for the interest (as per option C) when the premise states "A government agency that reimburses its clients for bills they have paid for child care". It says only bills not about the interest on the another loan taken in the mean time.

Please help me to understand this

email2vm

you have not understood option "c'' correctly........
what it means is as follows....

- I incur $1000 on medical expenses and take a loan for payment of same.......
- After 40 days i am reimbursed $ 1000 by the government agency.....which i use to repay my loan... but the borrower asks for $ 1100 (loan amount + interest on loan)
- I have to pay additional $ 100 from my pocket.....hence the argument that no affect of the new system accrues on the me ( ie citizen) is incorrect.....


HENCE "C" CORRECT....


Kudos if you please...............

Type weaken

Conclusion: delay in reimbursments would not harm clients financially.

Assumption: delay in reimbursments would not harm clients financially.

Weaken the assumption: Reimbursment harm the financial status of clients somehow

A government agency that reimburses its clients for bills they have paid for child care has had this year’s budget cut. To save money without cutting reimbursements or otherwise harming clients financially, it plans to delay reimbursements to clients for forty days, thereby earning 180 million per year in interest on the reimbursement money.

What category does this come under like cause and effect or alternate cause or numbers and percentage. I cant seem to see what pattern this fall under?

I think this is a weaken question.

I was struggling to choose between C and D.
can anyone help me to explain why D is wrong?

In option D it is implied that the clients already had money to pay the bills. Since they did not have to take loan to pay the bills, it does not matter whether there is a delay of 40 days in getting the payment because they do not have to pay interest on the money and their net cash flow is 0. They pay x for the bill, and receive x as reimbursement.

Option C clearly shows a loss for the client. They pay the bill x plus the interest on x, but get reimbursement of only x. So net cash out flow is the interest. Therefore option C is better since it shows that the government's intention of not harming the clients financially is not achieved.

C is correct choice.

We're specifically told in the argument that the purpose of the plan is to avoid cutting reimbursements or harming clients financially. Even if the budget was cut by more than $180 million last year (the amount that they expect to earn back in interest with the new plan), there are still other things the agency could to save money without harming clients financially (cut employee salaries, move into cheaper office space, etc.)

Only answer choice C states that the forty-day delay will cause financial harm to some clients, so that's the best criticism of the plan.

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

With a view to offset the budgetary cut that it had faced, the government agency plans to earn an interest of $180 million a year through a deliberate delay in the reimbursement of daycare expenses to its clients by forty days.

It claims that, by implementing this plan, it would neither cut reimbursements nor otherwise harm its clients financially.

We have been asked to identify that choice which can be described as the best criticism of the agency’s plan.

Since the agency’s claim is that its plan will neither result in cutting reimbursements nor otherwise harming its clients financially, we should look for that choice which implies either that the reimbursement is in fact reduced, or that the clients are otherwise financially harmed by this plan.

The first sentence of the passage specifically states that the schemes of reimbursement means that the clients have to first pay the bills to the daycares, and only later can claim reimbursement from the government agency. So, (A) states the obvious, and is not relevant in evaluating the effect of the delay in reimbursement by 40 days. So, (A) is not the answer.

(B) means that the agency is not in a position to save on its administrative costs. This, if true, will justify, and weaken, the agency’s plan to make savings through other means such as a deliberate delay in making reimbursements and earning interest thereby. So, (B) is not the answer.

(C) means that these clients will be financially harmed by the planned delay by the government agency in reimbursing their claims, thereby contradicting its claim that the plan would not harm its clients financially. So, (C) would be the best criticism of the agency’s plan, and is the answer.

(D) only means that, in respect of such delayed claims, the agency has already been benefiting by interest-earning.

Therefore (D), by itself, does not constitute a criticism of the agency’s present plan to delay reimbursement of claims by another forty days.

The given passage does not claim that the interest of $180 million earned by the deliberate delay in the reimbursement of claims was intended to cover the budget cut fully. So, (E) even if it is true, is not a valid criticism of the agency’s plan.

MentorTutoring GMATGuruNY
Hi guys,

Although only option Cmakes sense, the correct answer C, however it says some ?
I have not seen some to be correct in any official question, what is an exception in this question ?

Hello, hero_with_1000_faces. You have to be careful in pursuing an absolute line of thought, particularly when it comes to Verbal questions. Yes, the majority of the time, some in a CR answer choice leads the test-taker down the wrong path, but there are exceptions. The following are all official questions from the OG, and I did not have to hunt for them. I just flipped through some pages and took note of what I saw.

1) An Easy question

2) A Medium question

3) A Hard question

In short, you have reason to be skeptical of some, but its presence is not an absolute death sentence for a reasonable answer.

- Andrew

Thanks andrew for helping me out and sharing these questions.
MentorTutoring, I have made note of this in my errorlog.
Thanks !

when the question asks for the best criticism are we looking for sth that weakens the argument?

Here's what the author wants to say in the argument:
1. The government agency has had some budget cuts (we don't know how much)
2. To save money, the government agency plans to delay the reimbursement by 40 days
>> Condition 1: no reimbursement to be cut
>> Condition 2: Not harming the clients financially
3. By implementing the plan, the government agency will earn around 180 Million dollars per year

The question stem asks us to provide criticism for the author's argument, i.e. if the below-mentioned answer choices are considered true, which one will most likely attack the author's argument that by implementing the plan, the government agency will be able to save money WITHOUT reimbursement cuts or without harm to the clients financially

Answer choices:
(A) Hospitals and physicians typically hold patients responsible for the ultimate payment of their bills.
> This does not say anything about the main argument in context. Even if the patients are held responsible for the ultimate payment and there is a delay of 40 days from the agency, we are not informed if this delay of 40 days puts the patients in soup or not. Maybe the hospitals and physicians are aware of the 40-day-delay and are not expecting the patients to pay earlier

(B) The agency cannot save money by cutting staff because it is already understaffed.
> This statement says that the agency cannot save money by cutting staff and therefore the plan suggested by the author is the only option to earn money. There could be n number of different ways by which the agency could save money. One such thing could be increasing the funding from tax. Therefore, this answer choice is incorrect

(C) Some clients borrow money to pay their medical bills; they will pay forty extra days of interest on these loans.

> If this is true then the author's claim (condition 2) that the clients should not be financially harmed does not hold true anymore. Hence, this is a valid criticism of the argument

(D) Some clients pay their medical bills immediately, but they often take more than forty days to file with the agency for reimbursement.

> Again, this does not say anything about the impact of implementing the plan. It just says that the clients are eventually going to end up with a delay in payment of up to 80 days (40 days delay for the filing and 40 days delay for the reimbursement). If this is true, then it is indicative that the clients are not very concerned about the timely reimbursement of the claim and are okay to have that delay. This in turn indicates that the clients are not going to be financially harmed. If at all, this answer choice supports the author's claim. hence, it is incorrect

(E) The agency’s budget was cut by more than $180 million last year.
> Now this is a trap question. This looks very attractive at first because it has 'data' to give us a perspective. But here's why this answer choice is wrong -
1. The author of the argument is not concerned about the actual amount of money. Had it been the case, the author's main conclusion would have included this information. Right now it just says that "thereby earning $180 million per year in interest"
2. The answer choices like this are more often than not traps. Think of it as this - do we know how much more than 180 Million dollars was the budget-cut? Was it 180 million and 1 dollar or 5000 million dollars? If in case it was 180 Million 1 dollars, then the budget-cut was more and the plan would most likely work, but if the budget-cut was 5000 million dollars then it wouldn't work. Hence, this is an ambiguous answer choice.

Hope the explanation helps

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