Sources of Population Data Questions and Answers

Answer: B

From the 1991 Census onwards, children aged 0-6 are treated as illiterate.

Before 1991 the literacy rate was worked out over the whole population or over those aged five and above. From the 1991 Census the Registrar General counted every child below seven as illiterate by definition, since the literacy of such young children cannot be judged, and the rate was then calculated for the population aged seven and above.

The first option, 1981, is before the change. The options 2001 and 2011 only continued the practice that began in 1991, so they are not the census from which it started.

Answer: B

The census method changed from the de facto to the usual-residence (de jure) basis in 1941, according to the key. Until 1931 the Indian census was taken on a single night, counting people where they were found. The Census of India note records that this synchronous one-night method was given up from 1941 and replaced by the present, more flexible method.

The year 1911 belongs to the period of the single-night count, and 1951 and 2011 are later censuses carried out under the changed method rather than the year in which it first replaced the old one.

Answer: D

The key is that data collection should be scrutinised by examining the consistency in the data collected. Internal consistency checks, such as that a mother is older than her children or that the number of births matches the number of women of childbearing age, find errors in the data.

Taking a sample of units and verifying them in the field is a separate post-enumeration check. Examining the information in totality is too vague to be a method, and consistency in the unit of measurement covers only one narrow kind of error, so the more general option is the one in the key.

Answer: C

The Indian census does not provide information on the health status of the population. It covers demographic characteristics such as age and sex, economic characteristics such as workers and occupation, and household characteristics such as amenities and assets.

Information on the state of health, illness and nutrition comes from other sources, such as the Sample Registration System, the National Family Health Survey and national sample surveys, so that is the topic the census does not give.

Answer: D

The first complete census at regular intervals was undertaken in 1665 in New France (Quebec) and Acadie (Nova Scotia), under Jean Talon, the intendant. It is regarded as the first modern census of a colony.

The United States started its decennial census in 1790, which is later, England's began in 1801 and Germany's later still, so only the option naming New France fits the date.

Answer: D

The official key gives 1958 - 59 as the period when the National Sample Survey began collecting data on births and deaths.

The NSS began in 1950 with rounds on consumption, land holdings and employment, and added fertility and mortality enquiries in later rounds. I could not confirm the round from an independent source, so the answer rests on the key.

The earlier periods (1950 - 51, 1954 - 55 and 1956 - 57) belong to rounds that dealt chiefly with other subjects, and for that reason they are the weaker choices.

Answer: D

The United Nations Age-Sex Accuracy Index uses all the above.

The index is a joint score. It takes the mean deviation of the age ratios for males from 100, the mean deviation of the age ratios for females from 100, and three times the mean of the differences in reported sex ratios between successive ages, and then adds the three together.

Each of the first three options is one component of the score, so choosing only one of them is incomplete. Since all three are used, option D is the answer.

Answer: A

The correct matching is a-iv, b-ii, c-i, d-iii.

The dual system of sample registration areas and surveys is the method described by Chandrasekar and Deming (iv). Whipple's index measures digit preference, mainly for 0 and 5 (ii). Myers' blended method measures preference and avoidance of each digit (i), and El-Badry's method corrects for non-response in the reporting of births and deaths (iii).

The other codes give these names to the wrong techniques, such as the dual system to Whipple.

Answer: A

The key gives the codes 4, 2, 3, 1 (option A) for I to IV. The pairing of the external consistency check with the balancing equation (III-3) is the one that is easy to confirm, since the balancing equation compares census counts with births, deaths and migration over the period. The key also pairs content error with the post enumeration check (IV-1), as a re-survey tests the correctness of the recorded answers, and errors associated with age with coverage error (I-4). The other options pair the balancing equation or the check differently from the key, so they are rejected. The key's second pair is taken as printed.

Answer: B

The salient features of a census are simultaneity, universality and periodicity, so statements 2, 3 and 4 are correct. A census counts every person in the country at the same reference moment (simultaneity), covers every individual in the defined area without leaving out any group (universality), and is repeated at regular intervals, which in India is every ten years (periodicity).

Selectivity (statement 1) is the opposite of the census principle, since a census is not a selective count but a complete enumeration. Selection of units belongs to sample surveys, so the options containing 1 are wrong.