Identify the implied main idea of the paragraph.
Every decision starts with the end you have in mind: the goals you wish to accomplish by making the decision. For example, suppose you are trying to decide
how to spend a little extra money: on a gym membership or on a distance-leaming course in computer programming. The gym membership may raise your level
of fitness and help you lose weight, something you promised yourself you’d do. The programming class will be interesting, but the skills you’ll learn aren’t really
applicable to your current job. In terms of short-term goals, then, the gym membership may be the better choice. On the other hand, while the programming class
may not provide as clear-cut an immediate payoff, it may help you meet your longer-term goal of entering the technology industry. It is up to you to decide which
goal to prioritize.
Source: Adapted from Feldman. Power Leorning ond Your Life, 2 e .
Short-term goals should take priority over long-term goals.
Learning to program is a more valuable goal than improving your fitness.
When making decisions, it is important to consider both long- and short-term goals.
It can be difficult to decide when to take a distance-learning course to improve your technical skills.

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UpStudy AI · Accepted Answer

1. **Identify the Context:**  
   The paragraph discusses how the outcomes of a decision are guided by the goals you wish to accomplish. It compares two options—a gym membership to improve fitness (a short-term goal) and a programming course for long-term career benefits (a long-term goal).

2. **Analyze the Options:**  
   - The gym membership is presented as directly meeting a short-term, tangible goal: losing weight and increasing fitness.  
   - The programming course, while not offering immediate benefits, addresses a long-term goal: entering the technology industry.  
   This gives us the idea that decisions often involve weighing short-term and long-term objectives.

3. **Extract the Implied Decision-Making Principle:**  
   The key idea is that in decision-making, it is vital to consider both the immediate (short-term) benefits and the more distant (long-term) advantages. This is encapsulated by the phrase, “Every decision starts with the end you have in mind.”

4. **Expressing the Main Concept Mathematically:**  
   If we denote  
   - $$ S $$ as the value derived from short-term goals, and  
   - $$ L $$ as the value derived from long-term goals,  
   
   then making a decision can be seen as evaluating the function  
   
   $$
   D = f(S, L)
   $$
   
   where both $$ S $$ and $$ L $$ must be taken into account to optimize the decision outcome.

5. **Conclusion:**  
   Among the given choices, the statement that best captures the essence of the paragraph is:  
   
   $$
   \text{"When making decisions, it is important to consider both long- and short-term goals."}
   $$
When making decisions, it's important to consider both short-term and long-term goals.

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