Free Social Change and Development MCQs with Answers

• A. Global cities are major urban centers of commerce on which corporations rely.
• B. Global cities are characterized by centralized manufacturing and production activities.
• C. Global cities result from decentralized managerial and financial operations.
• D. Global cities result from changes in world population

Explanation: Global cities are key nodes in the world economy, providing concentrated financial, commercial and corporate services on which multinational firms rely. They are associated more with global managerial and financial coordination than with centralised manufacturing, so a is correct.

• A. economic development will lead to a reduction in fertility
• B. governments consider modern contraceptive measures to be a threat to the preservation and continuation of their way of life.
• C. if contraceptives are made available and if information about the value and need for birth planning is disseminated people will reduce their fertility
• D. people can be coerced into using family planning techniques

Explanation: The family planning approach assumes that fertility falls when people can obtain modern contraceptives and receive information about the benefits and need for planned births. Economic development is the central claim of the modernization approach, not the family planning approach.

• A. an economic crisis in the capitalist system would force factory owners into the ranks of the unemployed
• B. an excess of the working-class population depends on the availability of employment opportunities not on fixed supply of food.
• C. the problems associated with population growth are a function of the scarcity of wealth
• D. self-control would restrain population growth.

Explanation: Marx rejected Malthus's idea that population pressure is determined by a fixed food supply; he linked surplus population to the capitalist demand for labour. Thus, the size of the working-class surplus depends on employment opportunities.

• A. A population pyramid portrays the sex and age composition of a population
• B. A population pyramid must be based on absolute numbers.
• C. A population pyramid is of interest solely to academics.
• D. A population pyramid requires complex statistical calculation to understand the interrelationship between age and sex in a given population.

Explanation: A population pyramid is a graphical representation of a population's age and sex composition, usually displaying males and females on opposite sides. It may use percentages or absolute numbers, so option b is too restrictive.

• A. emigration rate
• B. growth rate
• C. immigration rate
• D. net migration rate

Explanation: The net migration rate measures the balance of immigration and emigration in relation to the population, usually per 1,000 people per year. An immigration rate or emigration rate measures only one direction of movement.

• A. is the annual number of live births per 1000-woman age 15-44?
• B. Is the potential number of children that could be born if every woman of childbearing age bore all the children she possibly could?
• C. is the number of live births per 1000 members of a population in a given year
• D. enables researchers to see important difference among races. ethnic groups, classes, age groups, and other categories with in the population

Explanation: The crude birth rate counts live births in a year per 1,000 members of the total population. A rate based only on women aged 15 to 44 is the general fertility rate, not the crude birth rate.

• A. urban ecologists
• B. new urban sociologist
• C. functionalists
• D. human ecologists

Explanation: New urban sociologists use a conflict-oriented analysis of housing, arguing that developers, banks, and real-estate interests treat housing as a source of profit. This contrasts with approaches that focus mainly on ecological adjustment or social stability.

• A. preindustrial city
• B. industrial city
• C. postindustrial city
• D. edge cities

Explanation: Postindustrial cities tend to have greater cultural diversity, individual choice, and exposure to alternative beliefs, so established religious traditions become more fragmented. Preindustrial cities were generally more dominated by a single religious order.

• A. reliance on animal power as a source of energy
• B. the high levels of surplus produced by the agricultural sector
• C. the ease of migration to the city
• D. all of the above

Explanation: Preindustrial cities were limited by dependence on animal and human power, which restricted transport, food supply, and the physical size of urban settlements. Agricultural surplus and easy migration would generally encourage, rather than restrict, urban growth.

• A. Pre-transition stage
• B. transition stage
• C. post transition stage
• D. initiation stage

Explanation: The pre-transition stage has both high birth rates and high death rates, so population growth remains limited. It is also called the pre-industrial or high-stationary stage in demographic transition theory.