Reading Comprehension

PT109 · S2 · P1 · Q1 Per-Capita GNP

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Many political economists believe that the soundest indicator of the economic health of a nation is the nation’s gross national product (GNP) per capita—a figure reached by dividing the total value of the goods produced yearly in a nation by its population and taken to be a measure of the welfare of the nation’s residents.

Topic / Purpose

Measuring economic health / Problem-Solution

Main Point

Human indicators are a better metric than is GNP to measure the welfare of a nation's residents.

Passage Map

P1 - Intro of GNP as one method. Author's thesis that human indicators is better method. P2 - Brief defense of GNP by its proponents, followed by author's reasons that GNP is not a great metric. P3 - Real world examples of countries going with human indicators instead.

Other Commentary

This passage's big picture can be surmised in the first two sentences. We hear the classic 1-2-punch of "many (other) people believe ____ " followed by the Author's Pivot, with a But / Yet / However / Recently.

We could have also construed this passage with other frameworks: Answer a Question - How should we measure economic health? Human indicators. Present a Debate - People are debating how to measure economic health, and our author is on the side of "human indicators".

1.

Which one of the following titles most accurately expresses the main point of the passage?

  1. “The Shifting Meaning of Per

    Trap

    Missing the Solution Out of Scope: shifting meaning This answer makes it seem like GNP has shifted from meaning "Total Value / Total Population" to human indicators, but that isn't what the passage was saying. GNP hasn't become human indicators. Measuring by human indicators is a separate method. Any answer not addressing the author's preferred Solution would be not stressing her main point.

    3% picked this

  2. “A Defense of Per Capita

    Opposite

    The author came to bury GNP, not to praise it. (Shakespeare reference) This wasn't written by the economists. It was written by an author who acknowledges their arguments but supersedes those arguments with her own attack on GNP.

    1% picked this

  3. Correct

    “The Preferability of Human Indicators

    Why this is right

    This sounds like our Main Point sentence (the 2nd sentence of the passage).

    Skill tested: Main Point · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    85% picked this

  4. “Total Wealth vs. Distribution of

    Bad Match

    This passage is about GNP vs. Human Indicators, but "total wealth" vs. "distribution of wealth" doesn't capture that. Yes, GNP cares about total value of goods (not quite 'wealth', but maybe). But human indicators is not reducible to "distribution of wealth". It is more about the things listed in the final sentence of the 1st paragraph, none of which are distribution of wealth.

    6% picked this

  5. “A New Method of Calculating

    Out of Scope: new method

    This answer is similar to (A). It's trying to entice students into thinking that our author was saying that GNP used to measure total value of goods divided by population, but now it measures human indicators. Not so. GNP is still what it is. Human indicators is a completely separate method of measuring.

    6% picked this

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