California Department of Veterans Affairs (CDVA) Accreditation Practice Exam

To determine the total combined evaluation for the veteran, we use the whole person approach established by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which emphasizes that each disability rating reflects the impact on the individual veteran rather than the sum of the percentages.

The veteran has service-connected foot diseases rated at 20% each. When combining ratings, we first need to find the effective combined rating for these two 20% evaluations:

1. Start with the first 20% rating. This means the veteran retains 80% functionality (100% - 20% = 80%).

2. The second 20% rating is applied to the remaining 80%. So, the calculation is 20% of the remaining 80%, which equals 16% (0.20 x 0.80 = 0.16 or 16%).

3. Add this 16% to the initial 20% to get an effective combined rating of 36%.

4. Rounding this up gives us a combined rating of 40% (as the VA rounds to the nearest 10%).

Next, we combine this 40% with the additional ratings of 40%, 20%, and 10%:

1. Starting with the 40% combined rating