Read the following passage and mart the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions. What is meant by the term economic resources? In general, these are all the natural, man–made, and human resources that go into the production of goods and services. This obviously covers a lot of ground: factories and farms, tools and machines, transportation and communication facilities, all types of natural resources, and labor. Economic resources can be ...

Read the following passage and mart the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.

What is meant by the term economic resources? In general, these are all the natural, man–made, and human resources that go into the production of goods and services. This obviously covers a lot of ground: factories and farms, tools and machines, transportation and communication facilities, all types of natural resources, and labor. Economic resources can be broken down into two general categories: proper resources– land and capital– and human resources– labor and entrepreneurial skills.

What do economists mean by land? Much more than the non–economist. Land refers to all natural resources that are usable in the production process: arable land, forests, mineral and oil deposits, and so on. What about capital? Capital goods are all the man–made aids to producing, storing, transporting, and distributing goods and services. Capital goods differ from consumer goods in that the latter satisfy wants directly, while the former do so indirectly by facilitating the production of consumer goods. It should be noted that capital as defined here does not refer to money. Money, as such, produces nothing.

The term labor refers to the physical and mental talents of humans used to produce goods or services (with the exception of a certain set of human talents, entrepreneurial skills, which will be considered separately because of their special significance). Thus the services of a factory worker or an office worker, a ballet dancer or an astronaut all fall under the general heading of labor.

What is the author's main purpose in writing this passage?