SOLVED

 26. Economists make use of assumptions, some of which are unrealistic, for the purpose of a. teaching economics to people who have never before studied economics. b. advancing their political agendas. c. developing models when the scientific method cannot be used. d. focusing their thinking. 27. For an economist, the idea of making assumptions is regarded generally as a a. bad idea, since doing so leads to the omission of important ideas and variables from economic models. b. bad idea, since doing so invariably leads to data-collection problems. c. good idea, since doing so helps to simplify the complex world and make it easier to understand. d. good idea, since economic analysis without assumptions leads to complicated results that the general public finds hard to understand. 28. An economic theory about international trade that is based on the assumption that there are only two countries trading two goods a. is useless, since the real world has many countries trading many goods. b. can be useful only in situations involving two countries and two goods. c. can be useful in the classroom, but is useless in the real world. d. can be useful in helping economists understand the complex world of international trade involving many countries and many goods. 29. The art in scientific thinking — whether in chemistry, economics, or biology — is a. the design and implementation of laboratory experiments. b. knowing when to stop collecting data and when to start analyzing the data. c. deciding which assumptions to make. d. being able to mathematically model natural phenomena. 30. The art in scientific thinking is a. finding the right problem to study. b. deciding which assumptions to make. c. the ability to make an abstract subject easy to understand. d. not something in which economists have to be skilled. Â