Economic Activities and Regional Development Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Regional variations in agricultural productivity are influenced by Climate and topography.

Agricultural productivity depends first on the physical base: temperature, rainfall and its reliability, the length of the growing season, slope and altitude, and the soils that go with them. These differ sharply from region to region and set the limits within which farming operates.

Cultural diversity, economic disparities and political boundaries can modify how land is used, but they are not the basic physical factors that the key treats as the influence on regional productivity.

Answer: B

The catalytic factor in Von Thunen's model is Transport Cost.

In The Isolated State (1826) Von Thunen assumed one market city on a uniform plain. Because transport cost rises with distance from the city, the rent a farmer can earn from each crop (location rent) falls with distance at different rates. This alone sorts land uses into concentric rings, so transport cost is the variable that drives the whole model.

The market or urban centre is a fixed given, and the concentric zones are the result of the model, not its cause.

Answer: B

The concept is Diseconomies of scale.

As a firm grows, average costs usually fall at first (economies of scale) through specialisation and bulk buying. Beyond some size, problems of coordination, communication, supervision and bureaucracy push average costs up again; these rising costs are diseconomies of scale.

Economies of scale are the opposite effect, and 'disintegration of scale' and 'diminishing scale' are not recognised economic terms.

Answer: C

The situation is a Meteorological Drought.

A meteorological drought is defined by rainfall alone: a prolonged period when rainfall falls significantly below normal (the India Meteorological Department uses a deficit of more than 25 percent) and is badly distributed.

It may lead to the other types. An agricultural drought is a shortage of soil moisture during the crop season, a hydrological drought is the depletion of surface and groundwater, and a socio-economic drought is the effect of shortage on people's livelihoods.

Answer: B

The costs are Line-haul costs.

Transport costs split into terminal costs, incurred at each end for loading, unloading, paperwork and terminal facilities, and line-haul costs, incurred in actually moving goods along the route. Line-haul costs are made up mainly of fuel and the wages of the crew, and they rise with distance.

Overhead costs are fixed costs of the enterprise, transfer costs refer to moving goods between modes, and network costs relate to building and maintaining the system, so none fits the description.

Answer: A

The highest terminal costs are at Marine ports.

Water transport needs harbours, docks, cranes, warehouses and pilot and handling services, and loading and unloading a ship is slow and expensive. Once loaded, however, a ship has the lowest line-haul cost per tonne-kilometre of any mode, which is why sea transport suits bulky goods over long distances.

Rail has lower terminal costs than shipping but higher than road, and road transport, including bus stands, has the lowest terminal costs and the highest line-haul costs.

Answer: A

The correct statements are (1), (2), (3).

The volume of trade is its total value in money terms; the composition of trade is the types of goods and services exported and imported; and the direction of trade is a country's trade with particular countries or trading blocs.

Statement (4) is false. International trade exists precisely because some countries have surpluses and others deficits of particular commodities, and trade moves goods from the first to the second. Every option including (4) is therefore wrong.

Answer: B

Such terrain is called an isotropic surface.

Von Thunen assumed an isolated state on a flat, featureless plain with the same soil, climate and ease of movement in every direction. An isotropic surface is one whose properties are identical in all directions, so distance from the market is the only thing that varies.

Isostatic refers to the balance of the crust on the mantle, isometric to equal measurement, and 'isolectic' is not a geographical term.

Answer: C

The practice is ley farming (printed 'Hey farming').

In ley farming, land is put down to grasses and legumes (a ley) for some years and then ploughed and sown to field crops in rotation. The grass phase adds organic matter and nitrogen, builds soil structure, protects the surface from erosion and restores fertility.

Basin listing makes small basins to hold rainwater, contour terracing cuts steps across slopes, and strip cropping alternates strips of crops; none of these rotates grasses with field crops.

Answer: C

The Land of Britain: Its Use and Misuse was written by L.D. Stamp.

Sir Laurence Dudley Stamp directed the Land Utilisation Survey of Britain in the 1930s, which mapped land use field by field with the help of schoolchildren. His book, published in 1948, summed up its results and influenced post-war planning.

Mohammad Shafi was an Indian agricultural geographer, D.M. Smith is known for welfare and industrial geography, and J.T. Coppock for agricultural geography of Britain; none wrote this book.