FL Lesson 8 Passage #3, p. 8-100, Question 5

[bli2016]

Hi, I'm having trouble figure out why C and D are not correct for this problem. I eliminated E (the right answer) because I thought that the passage was describing an alternate approach that some nations are taking to address the issue of GNP not reflecting economic health accurately, and was not necessarily outlining policy implications of this issue. I imagined the "policy implications of the argument made in the first two paragraphs" would be something more similar to the second half of the second paragraph, where the author outlines how high GNP could mask deficiencies in other human indicators and high levels of inequality.

Could someone help me out here? I chose D based upon the same line of reasoning-- I thought that D was showing how some nations are changing their ways of calculating economic health to correct the weaknesses in relying on GNP, as discussed in the second paragraph. C was also tempting because the first two paragraphs, in my opinion, were essentially saying that GNP is not a good measure of economic health and that human indicators are better for this purpose.

Thanks!

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, Bli2016,

Good questions! First, it's important to establish a good prephrase. As a baseline, give a brief description of what happens in each paragraph of the passage. It might look something like this:

1. Describe the prevailing method for calculating economic health: GNP
2. Describe an alternate method for calculating economic health: Human Indicators
3. Talk about how some nations are basing decisions on Human Indicators rather than GNP

This description is a crucial process of elimination tool. As you may have observed, once you get into the answer choices, it becomes tempting to try to shoehorn answer choices back onto the passage.

Let's discuss (C), (D), and (E).

• (C) Pick out the word "summary." What would a summary look like? It would be a recap of what was discussed in the first two paragraphs. Do we really have a recap in the last paragraph? I would posit that we do not.
  (D) Now let's ask what it would mean to "correct a weakness" in the political economists' position as outlined in the second paragraph. First, since we're talking about a weakness in their position, we'd need to know what their position is. They are in favor of GNP alone (as indicated in the first paragraph). The second paragraph does indeed point out some weaknesses in the GNP alone position: it fails to account for problems of well being that may be masked by high GNP. However, does paragraph three actually mitigate or correct these weaknesses in using GNP alone? No, on the contrary, paragraph three shows how some countries are abandoning GNP as a primary policy driver and instead substituting the opposite of the political economists' position. That is, paragraph three moves away entirely from the political economists' policy preferences and pursues the alternative outlined in paragraph two.
  (E) This is a good match for our prephrase, but assuming our prephrase was kinda "iffy," let's see what we can do with this answer choice. At a minimum, does paragraph three describe any policy implications? On line 48 we see at least one example that states that nations are "shifting domestic economic efforts" away from GNP and towards human indicators. Here at least we see a change in policy. What is this a change in policy towards? It is a change in policy towards human indicators. Does this shift mirror the proposed shift of which the author is in favor? Yes. Paragraph one introduces a position with which the author disagrees. Paragraph two argues for the alternative, which the nations in paragraph three apparently are adopting.

Thanks for the questions! I hope this helps.