12th Standard Geography — Economic Activities Online Test

About Economic Activities

Medium ~60 min study

Economic Activities is the fourth unit of the Tamil Nadu State Board Class 12 Geography book. It opens with the story of the driverless Waymo car, a product of secondary industries, and then defines an economic activity as making, providing, purchasing and selling goods or services.

The unit moves from activities directly connected with nature, such as gathering, pastoralism, agriculture and mining, to manufacturing, services and the intellectual quaternary and quinary sectors. It ends by dividing the world into developed countries, countries in transition and least developed countries, with figures on the world's biggest economies.

This page gathers the one mark questions of the book exercise with answers checked against the lesson, plus additional questions on farming types, shifting cultivation names, the Von Thunen rings, Weber's theory, classes of industries and economic groupings of countries.

What you'll learn

• Classify economic activities into primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary and quinary sectors.
• Distinguish subsistence farming from commercial farming and name the regional names of shifting cultivation.
• Explain the assumptions and four rings of the Von Thunen model.
• List the factors affecting the location of industries and explain Weber's theory.
• Classify industries by labour, raw material, ownership and source of raw material.
• Describe developed countries, countries in transition and least developed countries.

Before you start

• Natural resources and their types from the previous unit on resources.
• The idea of GDP, per capita income and standard of living.
• A world map showing the continents and major countries.

Economic Activities explained

What this unit covers

Primary activities

Hunting and gathering is the oldest known economic activity; foragers include the Inuit, Pygmies, Aborigines and Paliyan. Pastoralism covers nomadic herding and commercial livestock rearing, and transhumance is the seasonal movement of herders between summer and winter pastures. Farming is subsistence (primitive, intensive, shifting) or commercial (extensive, mixed, plantation), with Mediterranean agriculture and horticulture described separately.

Von Thunen model

The model from The Isolated State places market gardening and dairying, forests, grains and field crops, and ranching in four rings around the city, balancing land cost and transport cost.

Mining and secondary activities

Mining may be open-pit, surface, underground or in-situ. Industries are located by raw materials, power, transport costs, market, labour, government policy and capital. Weber's least cost theory uses a triangle of raw material sites and the market.

Classes of industries

Industries are grouped by labour, raw material, ownership, source of raw material and nature of products.

Tertiary activities and the world

Services form the tertiary sector, intellectual work the quaternary sector and gold collar decision makers the quinary sector. The world is divided into developed countries, countries in transition and least developed countries.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Placing Aborigines in South America. The book lists Aborigines of Australia among foragers.
• Calling Bhilai Steel Plant a private industry. It is a public sector plant, like BHEL and Durgapur.
• Saying soil and climate vary in the Isolated State. Von Thunen assumed they are consistent throughout.
• Naming rice as the crop of extensive farming. Wheat is its major crop.
• Putting a weight-gaining industry at the raw material site. Weber places it at the market.

Test yourself on these with the practice test, then check the worked reasoning in the solved MCQs.

Frequently asked questions

What are the five sectors of economic activity?

Primary activities use resources directly from nature, such as gathering, pastoralism, fishing, forestry, mining and agriculture. Secondary activities turn raw materials into goods. Tertiary activities provide services. The tertiary sector is further divided into the quaternary sector of intellectual work and the quinary sector of top decision makers.

What is transhumance?

Transhumance is the seasonal movement of people with their livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In mountains herders move to higher pastures in summer and to valleys in winter. The Gujjars, Bakarwals, Gaddis and Bhotiyas of the Himalayan region follow this practice.

How does subsistence agriculture differ from commercial agriculture?

In subsistence agriculture the output is consumed almost entirely by the farmers and their families, leaving only a small proportion for sale, and traditional methods are used. Commercial farming, such as extensive, mixed and plantation agriculture, grows crops for sale and profit, often on large holdings.

What are the four rings of the Von Thunen model?

Closest to the city lie dairying and intensive farming, because vegetables, fruit and milk must reach the market quickly. Next comes timber and firewood, which is heavy to transport. The third ring grows grains and field crops, and the outermost ring is used for ranching.

What does Weber's theory of industrial location say?

Weber used a triangle with two raw material sites at the base and the market at the apex to find the place of least transport cost. Weight-losing industries gain by locating near raw materials, weight-gaining industries by locating at the market.

What is a least developed country?

The United Nations lists as least developed those countries with the lowest indicators of socioeconomic development and the lowest Human Development Index ratings. A country qualifies through three criteria: poverty measured by GNI per capita, human resource weakness and economic vulnerability.

What is a country in transition?

It is a country whose economy is changing from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, with prices set by market forces rather than by a central planning organisation. The process has been applied in the former Soviet Union, the Eastern bloc and some Third World countries.