Exam-useful questions from this chapter, grouped by marks, each with a full model answer. Try writing the answer yourself first, then check it against this one.
1 1-Mark Questions
Q. What is meant by a ‘secondary activity’?
Answer: A secondary activity adds value to natural resources by transforming raw materials into more valuable products: for example, cotton in the boll becomes valuable yarn, and iron ore becomes valuable steel.
Q. Define manufacturing, as used in this chapter.
Answer: Manufacturing is the full array of production from handicrafts to moulding iron and steel and stamping out plastic toys to assembling delicate computer components or space vehicles. In each of these processes, the common characteristics are the application of power, mass production of identical products and specialised labour in factory settings for the production of standardised commodities.
Q. What do you understand by ‘mechanisation’?
Answer: Mechanisation refers to using gadgets which accomplish tasks. Automation is its advanced stage.
Q. What is ‘automation’?
Answer: Automation is manufacturing without the aid of human thinking during the process: the advanced stage of mechanisation, seen in automatic factories with feedback and closed-loop computer control systems.
Q. Define a foot-loose industry in one sentence.
Answer: A foot-loose industry is one that is not dependent on any specific raw material and can be located in a wide variety of places, since it largely depends on component parts obtainable anywhere.
Q. What is a basic industry?
Answer: A basic industry is one whose products are used as raw material to make other goods by other industries: for example, iron and steel used to make machines.
Q. What is a consumer goods (non-basic) industry?
Answer: A consumer goods industry produces goods that are consumed directly by consumers, such as bread and biscuits, tea, soaps and toiletries, writing paper and televisions.
Q. Define a technopolis.
Answer: A technopolis is a region where high-technology industries are regionally concentrated, self-sustained and highly specialised: the Silicon Valley near San Francisco and the Silicon Forest near Seattle are examples.
Q. What is ‘agri-business’?
Answer: Agri-business is commercial farming on an industrial scale, often financed by business whose main interests lie outside agriculture; such farms are mechanised, large, highly structured, chemical-reliant, and may be called ‘agro-factories’.
Q. Name the three types of ownership-based industries given in the chapter.
Answer: Public sector, private sector and joint sector industries.
Q. What is ‘technological innovation’, and what does it help achieve in modern manufacturing, according to the chapter?
Answer: Technological innovations, through a strategy of research and development, are an important aspect of modern manufacturing for quality control, eliminating waste and inefficiency, and combating pollution.
Q. Name any two techniques used in agro-processing (food processing), as given in the chapter.
Answer: Any two of: canning, producing cream, fruit processing and confectionery; older preserving techniques known since ancient times include drying, fermenting and pickling.
Q. Name any three industries the chapter names among the world’s most important manufacturing industries, contributing significantly to the world economy.
Answer: Any three of: iron and steel, textiles, automobiles, petrochemicals and electronics.
2 2-Mark Questions
Q. Distinguish between the ‘craft’ method and ‘mass production’ of manufacturing.
Answer: Under the craft method, factories produce only a few pieces which are made to order, so costs are high. Mass production, on the other hand, involves production of large quantities of standardised parts, with each worker performing only one task repeatedly.
Q. Why are steel, sugar and cement industries located close to their source of raw material?
Answer: These industries are based on raw material that is cheap, bulky and weight-losing (ores and similar material), so it is cheaper to process it near the source than to transport the heavy raw material long distances to a factory.
Q. What is the difference between household/cottage industries and small-scale manufacturing?
Answer: Household industries are carried out inside the producer’s own home using local raw material, simple tools and family/part-time labour. Small-scale manufacturing, in contrast, is distinguished by its production technique and place of manufacture: a workshop outside the home: using simple power-driven machines and semi-skilled labour.
Q. Name any two locational factors, other than market and raw material, that influence where an industry is located.
Answer: Any two of: access to labour supply, access to sources of energy, access to transportation and communication facilities, government policy, and access to agglomeration economies/links between industries.
Q. Why did countries like India, China, Indonesia and Brazil develop labour-intensive small-scale manufacturing?
Answer: The chapter states these countries developed labour-intensive small-scale manufacturing in order to provide employment to their large populations, since this type of manufacturing provides employment and raises local purchasing power.
Q. What kind of workforce dominates a high-technology industry, and why?
Answer: Professional (white-collar) workers make up a large share of the total workforce in a high-tech industry and greatly outnumber the actual production (blue-collar) workers, because high-tech manufacturing depends on intensive research and development rather than large-scale manual production.
Q. Give the chain example the chapter uses to explain a ‘basic industry’.
Answer: The chapter’s chain example is: Iron/steel are used to make machines for the textile industry, and these machines are then used to make clothes for use by consumers: iron/steel is therefore a basic industry.
Q. What are the five bases on which industries are classified according to their raw material inputs?
Answer: Agro-based, mineral based, chemical based, forest based, and animal based industries.
3 4-Mark Questions
Q. Explain the term ‘manufacturing industry’ and why the chapter uses this longer expression instead of just ‘manufacturing’.
Answer: Manufacturing literally means ‘to make by hand’, though it now also includes goods made by machines: a process that transforms raw materials into finished goods of higher value for sale in local or distant markets. An industry, more precisely, is a geographically located manufacturing unit maintaining books of accounts and records under a management system. Since the term ‘industry’ is comprehensive, it is also used as a synonym for ‘manufacturing’ (as in ‘steel industry’ or ‘chemical industry’), which brings to mind factories and processes. But many secondary activities are not carried out in factories at all: the chapter names the ‘entertainment industry’ and the tourism industry as examples: so, for clarity, the longer expression ‘manufacturing industry’ is used specifically for factory-based production.
Q. Explain, with the chapter’s own example, why manufacturing sites are much less conspicuous on the map than agricultural land despite their economic importance.
Answer: The chapter explains that manufacturing sites are much less conspicuous and cover far smaller areas than agriculture, because of the greater intensity of manufacturing processes. Its own example: 2.5 sq km of the American corn belt usually includes about four large farms, employing 10-20 workers and supporting 50-100 persons. But that same 2.5 sq km area could instead contain several large integrated factories, employing thousands of workers: showing how manufacturing packs far greater economic activity into a much smaller area than farming does.
Q. Describe household/cottage industries: their scale, resources used, and the kinds of products they make, with a named example from the chapter.
Answer: Household or cottage industry is the smallest manufacturing unit. Artisans use local raw materials and simple tools to produce everyday goods in their own homes, with the help of family members or part-time labour. The finished products may be used within the same household, sold in local (village) markets, or exchanged by barter; capital and transport do not influence this type of manufacturing much, since it has low commercial significance and most tools are made locally. Everyday products of this sector include foodstuffs, fabrics, mats, containers, tools, furniture, shoes and wood figurines, leather articles, pottery and bricks from clay, and gold/silver/bronze jewellery. The chapter’s own named example is a man making pots in his courtyard in Nagaland (Fig. 5.2(a)).
Q. Describe large-scale manufacturing and name the two broad types of industrial regions it has produced.
Answer: Large-scale manufacturing involves a large market, various raw materials, enormous energy, specialised workers, advanced technology, assembly-line mass production and large capital. It developed over the last 200 years, first in the United Kingdom, north-eastern U.S.A. and Europe, and has now diffused to almost all over the world (the chapter’s own example of this is a passenger car assembly plant in Japan, Fig. 5.4). On the basis of this system, the world’s major industrial regions fall into two broad types: (i) traditional large-scale industrial regions, thickly clustered in a few more developed countries, and (ii) high-technology large-scale industrial regions, which have diffused to less developed countries.
Q. Explain ‘agri-business’ and how it differs from ordinary farming, using the chapter’s own example.
Answer: Agri-business is commercial farming carried out on an industrial scale, often financed by businesses whose main interests lie outside agriculture altogether: for example, large corporations in the tea plantation business. Unlike ordinary farming, agri-business farms are mechanised, large in size, highly structured, and reliant on chemicals, so much so that the chapter describes them as ‘agro-factories’. The chapter’s example in its agri-business box is large corporations in the tea plantation business; its Fig. 5.5 shows a tea garden and a tea factory in the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu.
Q. Describe the concept and features of high-technology industry.
Answer: High technology, or high-tech, is the latest generation of manufacturing activities, best understood as the application of intensive research and development (R&D) leading to the manufacture of products of an advanced scientific and engineering character. Professional (white-collar) workers make up a large share of the total workforce and greatly outnumber the actual production (blue-collar) workers. Notable examples of high-tech activity named in the chapter include robotics on the assembly line, computer-aided design (CAD) and manufacturing, electronic controls of smelting and refining processes, and the constant development of new chemical and pharmaceutical products. Rather than massive assembly structures, the high-tech landscape is marked by neatly spaced, low, modern, dispersed office-plant-lab buildings, often grouped into planned business parks. Where high-tech industries are regionally concentrated, self-sustained and highly specialised, the region is called a technopolis: the Silicon Valley near San Francisco and the Silicon Forest near Seattle are the chapter’s own examples.
4 6-Mark Questions
Q. Explain any six factors that influence the location of large-scale industries, as described in the chapter.
Answer: Industries try to maximise profits by minimising costs, so they locate at points where production costs are lowest. The chapter names these factors: (1) Access to market: a market needs both demand and purchasing power; the developed regions of Europe, North America, Japan and Australia and the densely populated regions of South and South-east Asia all offer large markets, while some industries such as aircraft manufacturing and the arms industry have global markets. (2) Access to raw material: industries using cheap, bulky, weight-losing material (ores) locate close to the source, as with steel, sugar and cement industries; perishable agro-processing and dairy products are also processed near the source. (3) Access to labour supply: some manufacturing still needs skilled labour, though increasing mechanisation and automation have reduced this dependence. (4) Access to sources of energy: power-hungry industries such as the aluminium industry locate near the energy source; coal was historically the main source, and hydroelectricity and petroleum are important today. (5) Access to transportation and communication facilities: speedy transport for raw material and finished goods, and communication for exchanging information, both matter; Western Europe and eastern North America’s highly developed transport systems have always concentrated industry there. (6) Government policy: governments adopt regional policies to promote balanced economic development, setting up industries in particular areas. (A seventh factor, access to agglomeration economies from nearness to a leader industry and other linked industries, could also be named.) All these factors operate together to determine the final location of an industry.
Q. Differentiate between primary and secondary activities.
Answer: Primary activities are directly dependent on the environment, since they involve the extraction and production of natural resources: such as agriculture, fishing, forestry and mining: and their products are used more or less as they are obtained from nature. Secondary activities, in contrast, add value to these natural resources by transforming raw materials into more valuable products: cotton in the boll has limited use on its own, but once transformed into yarn it becomes far more valuable and can be used to make clothes; iron ore cannot be used directly from the mines, but once converted into steel it gains value and can be used to make many valuable machines and tools. Secondary activities are therefore concerned with manufacturing, processing and construction (infrastructure) industries, rather than with the direct extraction of resources itself.
Q. Classify manufacturing industries under the four bases given in the chapter, briefly explaining each with examples.
Answer: The chapter classifies manufacturing industries under four bases (Fig. 5.1): (1) SIZE: household/cottage (smallest, home-based, e.g. the Nagaland potter), small-scale (workshop-based, semi-skilled labour, e.g. India, China, Indonesia, Brazil) and large-scale (large market, advanced technology, e.g. the Japan car-assembly plant). (2) INPUTS/RAW MATERIALS: agro-based (sugar, textiles), mineral based (iron/steel from ferrous minerals; aluminium/copper/jewellery from non-ferrous minerals; cement/pottery from non-metallic minerals), chemical based (petrochemicals from mineral oil; synthetic fibre, plastic), forest based (furniture from timber, paper from bamboo/grass, lac industries) and animal based (leather, wool, ivory). (3) OUTPUT/PRODUCT: basic industries, whose products are used as raw material by other industries (iron/steel to machines to textile-industry clothes), and consumer goods (non-basic) industries, whose products are consumed directly (bread, soaps, televisions). (4) OWNERSHIP: public sector (government owned, as with India’s PSUs), private sector (individually owned, typical of capitalist countries) and joint sector (joint stock companies, or private and public sectors together).
5 Case Studies
(A) 1 mark What do industries try to minimise when choosing their location, according to the extract?
Answer: Industries try to minimise their production costs, since they maximise profits by reducing costs.
(B) 1 mark Name the industry given in the extract as an example of one located close to its energy source.
Answer: The aluminium industry.
(C) 2 marks What are ‘agglomeration economies’, as explained in the extract?
Answer: Agglomeration economies are the benefits many industries gain from being located near a leader industry and other related industries: savings that come from the linkages that exist between these different industries.
(A) 1 mark Which type of manufacturing does the extract describe as ‘the smallest manufacturing unit’?
Answer: Household or cottage industry.
(B) 2 marks How does small-scale manufacturing differ from household/cottage industries, according to the extract?
Answer: Small-scale manufacturing is carried out in a workshop outside the home (not inside it), and uses simple power-driven machines and semi-skilled labour, whereas household/cottage industry uses only simple tools and family/part-time labour inside the producer’s own home.
(C) 1 mark According to the extract, in what three ways may the finished products of household industry be used?
Answer: For consumption in the same household, for sale in local (village) markets, or for barter.