---
title: "Comment by Kartik N V J K on \"Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Sometimes Fails?\" | Hashnode"
description: "The \"Who approved Policy X\" example is a good one because it shows retrieval only helps if the answer is actually grounded in what came back, not just appended"
url: "https://hashnode.com/posts/retrieval-augmented-generation-rag-what-it-is-how-it-works-and-why-it-sometimes-fails/6a5365df26cb05fae8797efc/comment/6a5664f28cebd9b7728b714f"
---

[Discussion](https://hashnode.com/posts/retrieval-augmented-generation-rag-what-it-is-how-it-works-and-why-it-sometimes-fails/6a5365df26cb05fae8797efc)

Comment [Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Sometimes Fails?](https://hashnode.com/posts/retrieval-augmented-generation-rag-what-it-is-how-it-works-and-why-it-sometimes-fails/6a5365df26cb05fae8797efc)

[Kartik N V J K](https://hashnode.com/@kartik-nvj)

[Jul 14](https://hashnode.com/posts/retrieval-augmented-generation-rag-what-it-is-how-it-works-and-why-it-sometimes-fails/6a5365df26cb05fae8797efc/comment/6a5664f28cebd9b7728b714f)

The "Who approved Policy X" example is a good one because it shows retrieval only helps if the answer is actually grounded in what came back, not just appended to the prompt. In practice most RAG failures I see are upstream of the model: wrong chunk retrieved, or the right chunk retrieved but ranked too low to make the context window. A follow-up on how you measure whether an answer was faithful to the retrieved passages would round this out well.