It is generally believed that people receiving frequent medical checku

Question

Which of the following most logically completes the passage?

It is generally believed that people receiving frequent medical checkups are likely to need hospitalization less frequently than they would otherwise; after all, many things can be done following a checkup to prevent problems that, if ignored, might become acute and then require hospitalization. But for people with chronic illnesses, frequent medical checkups are likely to lead to more frequent hospitalization since __________.

(A) the recommended treatments for complications of many chronic illnesses involve hospitalization, even if those complications are detected while barely noticeable

(B) medical checkups sometimes do not reveal early symptoms of those chronic illnesses that are best treated in a hospital

(C) the average length of a hospital stay is the same for those who receive frequent checkups as for those who do not

(D) people with chronic illnesses generally receive medical checkups more frequently than people who are not chronically ill

(E) the average length of a hospital stay for people with a chronic illness tends to increase as the illness progresses

Posting it here as I could not find the discussion for this question in GMAT Club

EugeneFish · Accepted Answer

Medical checkups for healthy people -------------> Reduced cases of hospitalization.
Medical checkups for chronically ill people ------> Increased cases of hospitalization.  Why? There must be something with these checkups that requires hospitalization.

(A) the recommended treatments for complications of many chronic illnesses involve hospitalization, even if those complications are detected while barely noticeable
  Correct.  Even if there is a slight chance of an illness complication spotted during a checkup, chronically ill people should immediately be sent to a hospital.

(B) medical checkups sometimes do not reveal early symptoms of those chronic illnesses that are best treated in a hospital
  Out of scope.  This option talks about revealing the symptoms of chronic illnesses. Our prompt refers to people who already have chronic illnesses.

(C) the average length of a hospital stay is the same for those who receive frequent checkups as for those who do not
  Out of scope.  What happens in the hospital, including length of stay, is not relevant.

(D) people with chronic illnesses generally receive medical checkups more frequently than people who are not chronically ill
  Runner-up.  If they receive medical checkups more frequently, these people end up in hospital more often. However we still don't know WHY this happens.

(E) the average length of a hospital stay for people with a chronic illness tends to increase as the illness progresses
  Out of scope.  This is very sad. It also refers to what happens in future, which is irrelevant. We still do not know why chronically ill people end up in hospital after medical checkups.

OptimusPrepJanielle · Answer

We need to continue a line of thought whenever answering a logical completion of the passage question.

Here the passages tells:

1. Frequent medical checkups - less frequent hospitalization  because  it can prevent acute problems
2. For chronic diseases, more frequent check up - more frequent hospitalization  because  ....
We need to find a reason for 2.

Option A tells us that treatments of chronic diseases involves hospitalization, hence the chronic patients need to be hospitalized more often.
Hence the correct option.

hongson1706 · Answer

thank you for your explanation but I still don't understand why choice A is correct

abhishekdadarwal2009 · Answer

(A) the recommended treatments for complications of many chronic illnesses involve hospitalization, even if those complications are detected while barely noticeable
 Correct answer

(B) medical checkups sometimes do not reveal early symptoms of those chronic illnesses that are best treated in a hospital
 this widens the gap thus wrong answer

(C) the average length of a hospital stay is the same for those who receive frequent checkups as for those who do not
 out of scope

(D) people with chronic illnesses generally receive medical checkups more frequently than people who are not chronically ill

A causes B,but B will not necessarily cause A

(E) the average length of a hospital stay for people with a chronic illness tends to increase as the illness progresses
 The average lenght is not discussed but the frequency of visits is discussed

SeregaP · Answer

we need to find an answer choice that would be opposite to the premise that more frequent checks lead to fewer hospitalizations
answer A is fine

AnubhavK · Answer

The correct choice is A - Justifies that people with chronic illnesses, checkups may more often result in treatments that require hospitalization than in treatments that could prevent hospitalization.

pikolo2510 · Answer

Hello  GMATNinja   sayantanc2k

I am confused between A and B and not sure why B is wrong

(B) medical checkups sometimes do not reveal early symptoms of those chronic illnesses that are best treated in a hospital

If chronic illnesses have a low probability to be determined, then regular checkups might increase this probability. If the probability increases, then the patients have a more likelihood that they will be hospitalized and hence this can be the potential answer

Can you share your thoughts here?

AnubhavK · Answer

Hi @Pikolo,

Statement B is incorrect. Let's deep-dive into the hypothesis. The fact that occasionally a checkup fails to reveal early symptoms of a chronic illness best treated in a hospital does not indicate that frequent checkups of people with chronic illnesses would lead to more frequent hospitalization than less frequent checkups would. Thus, this talks about revealing the symptoms of chronic illnesses, on the other hand, we are looking for a prompt that refers to people who ALREADY HAVE chronic illness.

Hope this helps.

CAMANISHPARMAR · Answer

Option "A" was a straightforward choice for me as it explained "why" for people with chronic illnesses, frequent medical checkups are likely to lead to more frequent hospitalization.

Krishh9119 · Answer

This post is to remove confusion between option A and option D.

Option D gives reasoning for the  increased rates of check ups  for people with chronic illnesses compare to people who do not have chronic illnesses.
But we are looking for   more frequent hospitalization   not  check ups . So, clearly we can remove option D as irrelevant.

However, option A perfectly perfectly gives reasoning for more frequent hospitalization.

mSKR · Answer

We need to find out that why hospitalization is increased as frequent medical checks happen. ( in normal scenarios, if does medical check up on time, then hispitalization is less) Think for a moment. In what scenarios, such case is possible. When you go for medical check up and you need to do tests again for detection . you go again then test again then stay in hospital. If it is serious or something that needs long time to cure, you need to regularly visit again for therapy . if you don't do medical test , you don't know you have illness and you may no need to be hospitalized.( of course later it would be more serious) E.g. Tuberculosis : when you don't know you have TB, then you don't visit. But once you know . Doctor would ask for regular visits and check ur health periodically. Sometimes for tests you need to stay in hospital also. On other side, if you have cough/cold and you do frequent medical checkups then doctor can find out illness on time( maybe have covid19?) and treatment can be done on time. Otherwise maybe you need to stay in hospital for long. So depends on illness , these 2 scenarios would be applicable. The question is : why in chronic illness( long term illness) , medical checkups end up in increasing hospitalization. I hope it is clear.

anshgupta · Answer

Hi, can anyone please explain how E is incorrect?
I was confused between A and E (I totally understand why A is correct but don't understand what is wrong with option E)

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

The passage ends as follows:

But for people with chronic illnesses, frequent medical checkups are likely to lead to more frequent hospitalization since __________.

Notice that what completes the passage has to explain why "frequent medical checkups" are likely to lead to "more frequent hospitalization."

Now, let's consider choice (E).

(E) the average length of a hospital stay for people with a chronic illness tends to increase as the illness progresses

Notice that (E) explains the wrong thing. (E) explains why "the average length of a stay" increases.

Information on why the average  length  of a stay increases does not explain why hospitalization, i.e. stays, becomes more  frequent .

Elite097 · Answer

(B) medical checkups sometimes do not reveal early symptoms of those chronic illnesses that are best treated in a hospital

If chronic illnesses have a low probability to be determined, then regular checkups might increase this probability. If the probability increases, then the patients have a more likelihood that they will be hospitalized and hence this can be the potential answer

Can you share your thoughts here?

avigutman   RonTargetTestPrep   KarishmaB   GMATNinja   ThatDudeKnows

avigutman · Answer

Elite097  The argument claims that for people with chronic illnesses, frequent medical checkups are likely to lead to  more frequent hospitalization .
Answer choice (B) discusses the  discovery of early symptoms of chronic illnesses , so this is about people who didn't know they had a chronic illness, and now they do.
Do we have reason to believe that  discovering  that you have a chronic illness (sooner rather than later, thanks to a high frequency of checkups) leads to  more frequent hospitalization ? 
Answer choice (B) says "chronic illnesses that are best treated in a hospital" which is very different from "more frequent hospitalization".
Just because you're being treated for something in a hospital doesn't mean that you're being hospitalized. And, it certainly doesn't imply  more frequent hospitalization .

VerbalBot · Answer

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