Reading comp PrepTest 109 · Section 2 · Question 3

Passage

Questions 1-7  .        Many political economists believe that the soundest  . indicator of the economic health of a nation Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Social Science


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Author on GNP's shortcomings (ignores human indicators like health, resources, employment, and services)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • The view of many political economists:
      • Gross national product (GNP) per capita is the best way to measure economic health (first sentence)
    • Definition of GNP per capita: value of goods produced divided by population (first sentence)
    • Author's view:
      • GNP ignores human factors that also affect the welfare of citizens (second sentence)
    • Comparison, according to the author:
      • Human indicators are a better metric than GNP, although sometimes more difficult to calculate or document (second sentence)
    • Examples of human indicators, according to the author:
      • Life expectancy, infant mortality, availability of resources, employment, and governmental services like education, water, medicine, transportation, and communication (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "many factors affecting residents' welfare that are not captured" (second sentence), "sometimes more difficult to calculate or document" (second sentence), "provide sounder measures" (second sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Economists' defense (human indicators follow GNP increases) and author's rebuttal (that doesn't always happen; GNP can obscure wealth discrepancies)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Economists' view:
      • Improvements in GNP eventually improve human indicators (first sentence)
    • Author's view:
      • Increases in GNP do not always improve human indicators (second sentence)
      • GNP per capita can obscure wealth discrepancies and give a distorted picture of the distribution of wealth across a society (fifth through last sentences)
    • Examples, according to the author:
      • Some nations that have improved their GNP still have bad human indicators, like infant survival, literacy, nutrition, and life expectancy (fourth sentence)
      • A country with a low population where a small percentage of residents hold most of the wealth can have a high GNP per capita (fifth sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "But, in actuality" (second sentence), "often fails to occur" (second sentence), "does not always reach" (third sentence), "often presents a distorted picture" (fifth sentence), "is a matter not merely" (sixth sentence), "frequently obscures" (sixth sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Author's argument in the real world (nations are realizing GNP is a bad metric and caring more about human indicators)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Some nations' views:
      • Nations are becoming less concerned with raising their GNP and more focused on actually improving the human indicators (first and last sentence)
    • Comparisons, according to the author/some nations
      • Prioritizing GNP can hurt the health of the nation, and a nation can still do well with a relatively low GNP (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "realize" (first sentence), "better directed away" (first sentence), "recognize" (last sentence), "may be endangered" (last sentence), "may thrive" (last sentence)

Main Point: Human indicators are far better for measuring a nation's economic health than GNP because the latter ignores important factors and can obscure wealth discrepancies.

Meta-Structure?

Criticizing a Viewpoint Meta-Structure: This passage skirts the line between a few different Meta-Structures, but we ultimately decided that it uses a Criticizing a Viewpoint Meta-Structure.* In such a structure, the author describes a view held by another person or group, and then criticizes their view. Importantly, the author's argument should focus primarily on why the view is wrong, unjustified, or misguided.

In this particular passage, we begin with the conventional method of measuring the economic health of a nation: gross national product per capita (GNP). Immediately after this introduction, the author makes it clear that they are not a fan of this method. They think it ignores other factors that affect citizens' welfare. Another, more elusive metric that considers "human indicators" is more accurate. Though some economists claim that improvements in GNP can cause improvements in those other factors, this is demonstrably false; some nations have a high GNP but low scores in human indicators. Also, GNP can be distorted by how a nation's wealth is distributed. Finally, the author says that nations are acknowledging the problems with GNP and electing to focus on improving with more accurate indications of their citizens' welfare.

In passages that use a Criticizing a Viewpoint Meta-Structure, the main point will be the author's central criticism or a summary of the criticisms. Since there isn't a moment in the passage that the author offers such a criticism, we can forge our own. Thus, the main point will be something like: "Human indicators are far better for measuring a nation's economic health than GNP because the latter ignores important factors and can obscure wealth discrepancies."

*You could make a very strong case that this is an Old Approach/New Approach passage, with "human indicators" as the new approach. You could also claim that this is a Correcting the Record passage. There is considerable overlap between these Meta-Structures and Criticizing a Viewpoint. Ultimately, we chose Criticizing a Viewpoint because the author is more focused on criticizing GNP rather than promoting human indicators (seriously, we counted the number of sentences dedicated to each). But selecting any of these Meta-Structures could also lead you to an effective understanding of the passage. Regardless of what you choose, the important thing to remember is how the passage presents a certain method that the author thinks is bad for a couple reasons.

Last Thoughts?

When a passage sets up a conflict between two things, try to memorize a workable definition of both before moving on to the questions. Many questions will refer to, for instance, how GNP is calculated rather than just saying “GNP.” So, try to remember that per capita GNP is the value of goods produced by a nation divided by its population and that human indicators include things like life expectancy, infant mortality, availability of resources, employment, and governmental services.

Question prompt

The passage provides specific Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Question Type

Social Science

Strategy Overview

Remind ourselves of the main point of the passage, then head to the answers, focusing on those that line up with the main point and then using our notes/the passage to eliminate the incorrect answer choices

Answer Anticipation

For these Bizarro Must Be True questions, the correct answer will either present a topic not discussed by the passage or assert a claim contradicted by information in the passage. For the former, we’ll generally use a process of elimination to get rid of each answer that does show up in the passage. For the latter — we’re in luck — as we can find a line citation to prove that the passage contradicts the correct answer. In that case, we can feel a lot more comfortable about picking it — while also likely getting it correct faster. But we won’t know if this is the case for the correct answer until after we analyze it, so we should expect to use a process of elimination.As such, we’ll need to rely on our big-picture understanding of the passage to answer this question. We should start by reminding ourselves of the main point (either by reviewing what we said after reading the passage or by rereading our answer to the main point question). From there, we can head to the answer choices. If something seems familiar, consistent with the main point, or reflected in our notes, it’s probably supported by the passage. We can eliminate it without checking the passage. If something seems inconsistent with the main point, it’s probably the correct answer. We can use our notes/highlights/underlines to find the part of the passage that proves the answer choice must be false. If we can find that confirmation, we’ll select that answer choice and move on. If something in an answer choice doesn't seem familiar and isn’t reflected in our notes on each paragraph, we should mark that answer choice as the possible correct answer. Once we've eliminated the remaining answer choices, we can select it.

Answer choices

  1. A
    how per capita GNP Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Is this answer choice consistent with the main point or reflected in our notes?

    Well, the passage is about per capita GNP, so there's a good chance it was defined. Even if you don't remember that the author offered an explicit definition in the first paragraph — saying that you get per capita GNP by "dividing the total value of the goods produced yearly in a nation by its population" (P1, S1) — you can still safely eliminate this answer choice without reviewing the passage.

  2. B
    what many political economists Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Is this answer choice consistent with the main point or reflected in our notes?

    Yep. Our note for the second paragraph is, "Economists' defense (human indicators follow GNP increases) and author's rebuttal (that doesn't always happen; GNP can obscure wealth discrepancies)." Since economists defend GNP, we can infer that they believe it's an accurate measure of a nation's economic health. We can safely eliminate (B) without reviewing the passage. (If you did, you'd see that the author claims that many political economists think that GNP is the best measure of economic health (P1, S1).)

  3. C
    how nations with a Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Is this answer choice consistent with the main point or reflected in our notes?

    More or less. Our note for the third paragraph is, "Author's argument in the real world (nations are realizing GNP is a bad metric and caring more about human indicators)." If some nations are promoting human indicators more than GNP, it would make sense that a nation with a relatively poor per capita GNP could still be economically healthier than other nations. Especially when we consider that our note for the second paragraph suggests that human indicators do not always increase as GNP increases. We can safely eliminate (C) without reviewing the passage. (If you did, you'd see that the author claims that focusing on human indicators will allow some nations to "thrive even if their per capita GNP remains stable or lags behind that of other nations" (P3, S2).)

  4. D
    why human indicators may Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Is this answer choice consistent with the main point or reflected in our notes?

    Absolutely. Our note for the second paragraph is "Economists' defense (human indicators follow GNP increases) and author's rebuttal (that doesn't always happen; GNP can obscure wealth discrepancies)." If human indicators do not always increase as GNP increases, then the two metrics would provide different pictures of a nation's economic health. We can safely eliminate (D) without reviewing the passage. (If you did, you'd see that the author provides an example of how a country with a high per capita GNP might still have overall poor economic health according to human indicators (P2, S4).)

  5. E
    how nations can adjust Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem

    (E) Is this answer choice consistent with the main point or reflected in our notes?

    Not really. Our note for the third paragraph says, "Author's argument in the real world (nations are realizing GNP is a bad metric and caring more about human indicators)." This note suggests that nations are not pursuing GNP increases — they're focusing on human indicators instead. None of our other notes mention how a nation would improve its GNP. This isn't even a topic the author is terribly concerned with. We can safely conclude that (E) is not mentioned in the passage, and it is the correct answer.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 4%
  2. B 4%
  3. C 11%
  4. D 8%
  5. E Credited 73%

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