Exam 4: Product Costs and Job Order Costing

In a brief essay, explain why you suppose sensationalism (as found in supermarket tabloids, for example) has such a wide audience despite its frequent conflicts with our background information.

What percentage of American high school students have smoked marijuana? Giving at least one reason for your choice, discuss whose opinion is the more credible. a. USA Today b. Americans for Legalized Marijuana (ALM)

In a brief essay, discuss the conditions under which it is reasonable to regard an eyewitness account as credible.

In a brief essay, make up an issue and a list of sources and give your own ranking of the credibility of the sources you listed.

During World War II, he was a gunnery officer with the Pacific Fleet. After the war, he returned to the University of Iowa, where he became professor of physics and chairman of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. In 1958, during the mission of Explorer 1, the first successful U.S. Earth satellite, he discovered the radiation belts surrounding the Earth, that are named for him. He was the principal investigator for the space probe of Jupiter's radiation belts and one of the discoverers of the radiation belts of Saturn. He was chairman of the group that developed the Voyager and Galileo space missions and is currently principal investigator for the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 projects. a. the number of women employed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration b. the uses of satellites for national security purposes c. the biological effects of ultraviolet radiation d. the structure of comet tails e. recent geological activity along faults in southern California f. the impact of a manned space station on science and technology

For the following issue, discuss which source you'd trust more, and give at least one reason why. You may want to add to or otherwise modify our list of sources. And do keep in mind that we are glad our livelihoods do not depend on a general consensus on our rankings. Issue: Were there unjustifiable cost overruns in the construction of ships made for the U.S. Navy by Lytton Industries? a. the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee b. the accounting director for Lytton c. the Navy Chief of Staff d. the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) e. an article in The Progressive (a left-of-center political journal)

Reference works such as dictionaries are utterly reliable sources of information-otherwise they wouldn't be reference works.

Exercise: After reading the following account and our remarks, watch a local news program and critically evaluate the newsworthiness of each story covered. How much is news and how much is entertainment? "A shocking scene in a Lake Mary neighborhood tonight," began the anchorman. "A home surrounded by crime scene tape, and a death police are calling suspicious." Up on the screen flashed the words, "Neighborhood Shocker!" "Police say they don't know much about the life of Betty Bracone," on-the-scene reporter Nicole Smith began. "They do know that she was 66 years old and she lived in this home. They do know she had a family and they found many pictures of children inside her home." Smith then segued to an interview with a policeman who said there was no forced entry, that everything in the house was intact and that nothing indicated a robbery. "The autopsy will be held tomorrow and they're not exactly sure yet what they will find," Smith said. "So they want to keep a very tight lid on what happened.... Live in Lake Mary, Nicole Smith, Channel 6 News." -From a report on Channel 6 News, Orlando, Florida Remarks: Although this report filled the screen with the flashing lights of emergency vehicles and bright yellow crime-scene tape, it was remarkable mainly for being a complete nonstory. The 66-year-old Betty Bracone, it turned out, had died in her own bed of a heart attack, hardly a big news event. But the episode shows how local news programs will go to great lengths to produce an exciting news bit even though it is entirely hype. Every story like this takes up space that could have been devoted to real news.

For the following issue, discuss which source you'd trust more, and give at least one reason why. You may want to add to or otherwise modify our list of sources. And do keep in mind that we are glad our livelihoods do not depend on a general consensus on our rankings. Issue: Is decreasing your intake of dietary fat and cholesterol likely to reduce the level of cholesterol in your blood? a. Time magazine b. Runner's World magazine c. your physician d. the National Institutes of Health e. the New England Journal of Medicine

Assess the following as probably , as probably , as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. "NASA [the National Aeronautics and Space Administration] says private investors, not taxpayers, will fund its newest manned space vehicle. If you believe that, you probably think little green men inhabit Mars." -Forbes

Assess the following as probably , as probably , as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. "Enough is enough! A national survey finds a majority of American adults do not support more restrictive or tougher anti-smoking measures." -The Tobacco Institute

Based only on the information given in this biography, discuss the credibility and authority of the person described on each of the topics in the list that follows: Robert Kuttner is the economics correspondent of The New Republic, a columnist for Business Week and the Boston Globe, and a contributor to the Atlantic. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1965, he studied at the London School of Economics and took a master's degree in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to his writing, Kuttner served in Washington from 1975 to 1978 as the chief investigator for the Senate Banking Committee. In 1979 he was a fellow at Harvard's John F.Kennedy School of Government.He subsequently edited the journal Working Papers.Kuttner is the author of Revolt of the Haves (1980) and, most recently, The Economic Illusion (1984), which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.a.the effects of inflation on the stock market b.the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insures deposits at banks and savings and loan institutions c.restaurants in London d.politics and upper-income groups in America e.poverty among Native Americans

In a brief essay, discuss three ways a person can increase his or her background knowledge.

Assess the following as probably , as probably , as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. Q: Did Marilyn Monroe keep a diary about her relationships with John and Robert Kennedy? A: No. -Walter Scott's Personality Parade, Parade

One's own observations provide the least reliable source of information about the world.

Assess the following as probably , as probably , as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. "Apple's history is more like a soap opera than a corporate biography." -Macworld magazine, March 1997

In recent years, the media have become controlled by thousands of independent outlets.

Assess the following as probably , as probably , as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. "The great preponderance of lottery players are from the lowest third of the population in terms of income levels. It is mainly the poor who are being exploited by state lotteries." -A sociology professor at a state university in the Midwest, in a radio interview

Assess the following as probably , as probably , as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. "Driven by the Gramm-Rudman mandate to cut $46 billion from the budget..., OMB director James Miller is proposing to sell off whole programs and agencies from the federal establishment. Miller's hit list is mostly secret for the time being, but administration sources say it includes some large, costly and much-venerated legacies of the Democratic past. One example: the Bonneville Power Administration, which provides low-cost electricity to the Pacific Northwest from a far-flung system of hydroelectric dams and substations, including the Grand Coulee Dam." -Newsweek (during the Reagan administration in the late 1980s)

Assess the following as probably , as probably , as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source.