Self-study
P1
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. ███
Economists' perspective ·
Best indicator of nation's economic health is gross national product (GNP) per person
GNP per person = total value of goods produced per year divided by population.
Critique ·
Human indicators are more important than GNP in measuring nation's welfare
Lists examples of human indicators. Nutrition, life expectancy, infant mortality, access to various resources such as water, education, medicine, and more.
P2
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Economists' response ·
Improvements in GNP cause improvements in human indicators
Rebuttal 1 ·
Some nations have high GNP, but but low human indicators
Rebuttal 2 ·
GNP doesn't measure distribution of benefits
Nations can have high GNP even if economic benefits go to a small minority of the population.
P3
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What some nations do ·
Focus on improving human indicators, not GNP
They recognize that material wealth should not be sole indicator of economic health.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
1.
Which one of the following ██████ ████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ███ ████████
Question Type
Main point
The main point of this Critique passage is to demonstrate that human indicators may provide a more accurate
a
"The Shifting Meaning ██ ███ ██████ ████ █ ██████████ ████████████
The passage only gives one meaning of per capita GNP, so the title “shifting meaning” doesn’t apply. Also, (A) doesn’t even mention using human indicators to measure economic health.
b
"A Defense of ███ ██████ ████ ██ ███████████ ██████████
The passage actually supports the use of human indicators and focuses on the
c
"The Preferability of █████ ██████████ ██ ████████ ██ ████████ ████████ ███████
This title captures the main point of the passage, which is that human indicators may be a more complete
d
"Total Wealth vs. ████████████ ██ ██████ ██ █ ███████ ██ ████████ ███████
The passage does
e
"A New Method ██ ███████████ ███ ██████ ███ ██ ███████ ████████ ████████ ███████
The passage does not mention a new method of calculating per capita GNP; only