Personnel officer : The exorbitant cost of our health-insurance benefits reflects the high dollar amount of medical expenses incurred by...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
Personnel officer : The exorbitant cost of our health-insurance benefits reflects the high dollar amount of medical expenses incurred by our employees. Employees who are out of shape, as a group, have higher doctor bills and longer hospital stays than do their colleagues who are fit. Therefore, since we must reduce our health-insurance costs, we should offer a rigorous fitness program of jogging and weight lifting to all employees, and require employees who are out of shape to participate.
The conclusion reached by the personnel officer depends on which of the following assumptions?
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| The exorbitant cost of our health-insurance benefits reflects the high dollar amount of medical expenses incurred by our employees. |
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| Employees who are out of shape, as a group, have higher doctor bills and longer hospital stays than do their colleagues who are fit. |
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| Therefore, since we must reduce our health-insurance costs, we should offer a rigorous fitness program of jogging and weight lifting to all employees, and require employees who are out of shape to participate. |
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Argument Flow:
The argument starts with identifying a problem (high insurance costs due to medical expenses), then provides evidence linking unfitness to higher costs, and finally concludes that a fitness program will solve the cost problem.
Main Conclusion:
The company should offer a rigorous fitness program and require out-of-shape employees to participate in order to reduce health insurance costs.
Logical Structure:
The argument assumes that making unfit employees participate in a fitness program will actually make them fit, which will then reduce their medical expenses and lower insurance costs. The logic jumps from 'unfit employees cost more' to 'fitness program will make them fit and reduce costs' without proving this connection.
Prethinking:
Question type:
Assumption - We need to find what the personnel officer must believe to be true for their conclusion to work. An assumption is something that, if false, would make the argument fall apart.
Precision of Claims
The argument makes specific claims about fitness levels (out of shape vs fit), medical costs (higher doctor bills and longer hospital stays), and a proposed solution (rigorous fitness program with jogging and weight lifting). We need to focus on what must be true to connect these elements.
Strategy
To find assumptions, we'll look for gaps in the logic between the premises and conclusion. The officer jumps from 'unfit employees cost more' to 'a fitness program will reduce costs.' We need to identify what must be true for this jump to work. We'll think about ways the conclusion could fail even if the premises are true.
This isn't necessary for the conclusion to work. The argument focuses on the difference in medical expenses between fit and unfit employees, not on the frequency of routine checkups. Even if fit people got checkups just as often as unfit people, the argument could still hold if unfit people had more serious medical issues requiring expensive treatments.
While this sounds related to the conclusion, it's actually stating the desired outcome rather than an assumption needed to reach that conclusion. The argument already establishes that fit employees have lower medical costs than unfit ones. This choice is more of a prediction of success rather than a necessary assumption.
This is the correct answer. For the fitness program to solve the cost problem, it must be true that the program itself doesn't create medical expenses that exceed its benefits. If rigorous jogging and weight lifting caused injuries or health problems costing more than the savings from improved fitness, the plan would fail. This assumption is essential - without it, the proposed solution could actually worsen the problem it's meant to solve.
The argument doesn't depend on this numerical comparison. The program is specifically designed to require participation from out-of-shape employees while offering it to all employees. Whether more unfit than fit employees use it doesn't affect the logic of the solution.
This addresses absenteeism due to illness, but the argument is specifically about reducing medical expenses and health insurance costs, not about work attendance. While reduced sick days might be a nice side benefit, it's not necessary for the conclusion about cost reduction to be valid.