After the establishment of which zones are items in the hot or warm zone considered potentially contaminated and must be checked?

• A. Hot, Warm, and Cold Zones
• B. Red, Amber, Green Zones
• C. Danger, Caution, Safe
• D. Access, Containment, Recovery

Answer: (A)

The concept being tested is the established zone model for contamination control. In this model, the hot zone contains the most contaminated materials, the warm zone is the transition and decontamination area, and the cold zone is kept clean. Once these three zones are set up, anything that has spent time in the hot or warm zones is considered potentially contaminated and must be checked or decontaminated before it can move into the cold zone. This ensures that contaminants aren’t carried into cleaner spaces and helps prevent cross-contamination. The other label schemes—color codes like red/amber/green, or terms like danger/caution/safe, or generic phase names—don’t embody this zone-based boundary system used for managing contamination, so they don’t fit as well.