Political opinion and analysis outside the mainstream rarely are found on television talk shows, and it might be thought that this state of affairs is a product of the political agenda of the television stations themselves. In fact, television stations are driven by the same economic forces as sellers of more tangible goods. Because they must attempt to capture the largest possible share of the television audience for their shows, they air only those shows that will appeal to large numbers of people. As a result, political opinions and analyses aired on television talk shows are typically bland and innocuous.

The explanation offered by the author of the passage makes the assumption that

A. television station executives usually lack a political agenda of their own

B. bland and innocuous political opinions and analyses are generally in the mainstream

C. political analysts outside the mainstream are relatively indifferent to the effect their analyses have on television viewers

D. most television viewers are prepared to argue against allowing the expression of political opinions and analyses with which they disagree

E. the political opinions of television station executives are not often reflected in the television shows their stations produce

Franklin: It is inconsistent to pay sports celebrities ten times what Nobel laureates are paid. Both have rare talents and work hard. Tomeka: What you've neglected to consider is that unlike Nobel laureates, sports celebrities earn millions of dollars for their employers in the form of gate receipts and TV rights.

Franklin's and Tomeka's statements provide the most support for holding that they disagree about the truth of which one of the following?

A. Nobel laureates should be taken more seriously.

B. Nobel laureates should be paid more than sports celebrities.

C. Sports celebrities and Nobel laureates work equally hard for their employers.

D. There is no rational basis for the salary difference between sports celebrities and Nobel laureates.

E. The social contributions made by sports celebrities should be greater than they currently are.

For all species of higher animals, reproduction requires the production of eggs but not necessarily the production of sperm. There are some species whose members are all female; the eggs produced by a rare female-only species of salamander hatch without fertilization. This has the drawback that all offspring have genetic codes nearly identical to that of the single parent, making the species less adaptive than species containing both male and female members.

If the statements above are true, each of the following could be true EXCEPT:

A. There are some species of salamanders that have both male and female members.

B. There are some species of higher animals none of whose members produce eggs.

C. There is a significant number of female-only species of higher animals.

D. Some species of higher animals containing both female and male members are not very adaptive.

E. Some offspring of species of higher animals containing both female and male members have genetic codes more similar to one parent than to the other parent.

If something would have been justifiably regretted if it had occurred, then it is something that one should not have desired in the first place. It follows that many forgone pleasures should not have been desired in the first place.

The conclusion above follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

A. One should never regret one's pleasures.

B. Forgone pleasures that were not desired would not have been justifiably regretted.

C. Everything that one desires and then regrets not having is a forgone pleasure.

D. Many forgone pleasures would have been justifiably regretted.

E. Nothing that one should not have desired in the first place fails to be a pleasure.

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. But there are many factors affecting residents' welfare that are not captured by per capita GNP; human indicators, while sometimes more difficult to calculate or document, provide sounder measures of a nation's progress than does the indicator championed by these economists. These human indicators include nutrition and life expectancy; birth weight and level of infant mortality; ratio of population level to availability of resources; employment opportunities; and the ability of governments to provide services such as education, clean water, medicine, public transportation, and mass communication for their residents.

The economists defend their use of per capita GNP as the sole measure of a nation's economic health by claiming that improvements in per capita GNP eventually stimulate improvements in human indicators. But, in actuality, this often fails to occur. Even in nations where economic stimulation has brought about substantial improvements in per capita GNP, economic health as measured by human indicators does not always reach a level commensurate with the per capita GNP. Nations that have achieved a relatively high per capita GNP, for example, sometimes experience levels of infant survival, literacy, nutrition, and life expectancy no greater than levels in nations where per capita GNP is relatively low. In addition, because per capita GNP is an averaged figure, it often presents a distorted picture of the wealth of a nation; for example, in a relatively sparsely populated nation where a small percentage of residents receives most of the economic benefits of production while the majority receives very little benefit, per capita GNP may nevertheless be high. The welfare of a nation's residents is a matter not merely of total economic benefit, but also of the distribution of economic benefits across the entire society. Measuring a nation's economic health only by total wealth frequently obscures a lack of distribution of wealth across the society as a whole.

In light of the potential for such imbalances in distribution of economic benefits, some nations have begun to realize that their domestic economic efforts are better directed away from attempting to raise per capita GNP and instead toward ensuring that the conditions measured by human indicators are salutary. They recognize that unless a shift in focus away from using material wealth as the sole indicator of economic success is effected, the well-being of the nation may be endangered, and that nations that do well according to human indicators may thrive even if their per capita GNP remains stable or lags behind that of other nations.

Based on the passage, the political economists discussed in the passage would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements?

A. A change in a nation's per capita GNP predicts a similar future change in the state of human indicators in that nation.

B. The level of human indicators in a nation is irrelevant to the welfare of the individuals in that nation.

C. A high per capita GNP in a nation usually indicates that the wealth in the nation is not distributed across the society as a whole.

D. The welfare of a nation's residents is irrelevant to the economic health of the nation.

E. The use of indicators other than material wealth to measure economic well-being would benefit a nation.