A great number of auditors Q and A.

This is because they have not understood what it is.

Nearly all their auditing failures stem not from using wrong processes but from Q and A.

Accordingly I have looked the matter over and re-defined Q and A.

The origin of the term comes from “changing when the pc changes”. The basic answer to a question is, obviously, a question if one follows the duplication of the Comm formula completely. See Philadelphia Congress 1953 tapes where this was covered very fully. A later definition was “Questioning the pc’s Answer”. Another effort to overcome it and explain Q & A was the Anti-Q and A drill. But none of these reached home.

The new definition is this:

Q AND A IS A FAILURE TO COMPLETE A CYCLE OF ACTION ON A PRECLEAR.

A CYCLE OF ACTION IS REDEFINED AS START — CONTINUE — COMPLETE.

Thus an auditing comm cycle is a cycle of action. It starts with the auditor asking a question the preclear can understand, getting the preclear to answer it and acknowledging that answer.

A process cycle is selecting a process to be run on the preclear, running the Tone Arm action into it (if necessary) and running the Tone Arm action out of it.

A program cycle is selecting an action to be performed, performing that action and completing it.

Thus you can see that an auditor who interrupts or changes an auditing comm cycle before it is complete is “Q and A-ing”. This could be done by violating or preventing or not doing any part of the auditing cycle, i.e., ask the pc a question, get an answer to a different idea, ask the different idea, thus abandoning the original question.

An auditor who starts a process, just gets it going, gets a new idea because of pc cognition, takes up the cognition and abandons the original process is Q and A-ing.

A program such as “Prepcheck this pc’s family” is begun, and for any reason left incomplete to go chasing some new idea to Prepcheck, is a Q and A. Unfinished cycles of action are all that louse up cases.

Since Time is a continuum, a failure to carry out a cycle of action (a continuum) hangs the pc up at that exact point.

If you don’t believe it, prepcheck “Incomplete actions” on a pc! What Incomplete action has been suppressed? etc, cleaning the meter for real on every button. And you’d have a clear — or a pc that would behave that way on a meter.

Understand this and you’ll be about ninety times as effective as an auditor.

“Don’t Q and A!” means “Don’t leave cycles of action incomplete on a pc.” The gains you hope to achieve on a pc are lost when you Q and A.