CORE 2401: Final Exam Name:____________________



CORE 2401: Final Exam Name:____________________________

Instructor: Paul Sutton

Fall: 2010

Multiple Guess (75 pts at 3 per question): Write the letter representing the Best answer in the blank space next to the question number. No penalty for guessing.

1)____________ From the industrial revolution to the present the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has gone from ‘X’ parts per million to ‘Y’ parts per million ?

A) 250 to 350 B) 100 to 800 C) 300 to 150 D) 55 to 110 E) 500 to 1,000

2)_____________ Jared Diamond’s book ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel’ posited which of the following as root causes for European dominance of the world today.

A) A Mediterranean climate that produced larger skulls, brains, and intelligence

B) A lucky natural endowment of climate, plants, and domesticable animals

C) Cold winters which forced European people to ‘plan’ for future events

D) None of these.

3)____________ Which of the figures below best captures the age specific likelihood to make an inter-country migration?

[pic]

A B C D

4) ____________ Immigrants from Latin America are increasingly taking un-benefited low wage jobs that were previously filled by women, ethnic minority Americans and teenagers. This phenomenon is best characterized by which theory of migration ?

A) Dual Labor Market Theory B) Institutional Theory C) Network Theory

D) World Systems Theory E) New Household Economics Theory

5) ____________ Which region of the world has the largest number of countries deemed in the top 20 of ‘failing states’ according to the journal ‘Foreign Policy’?

A) Southeast Asia B) Africa C) Latin America D) Europe E) South America

6) _____________ Which of the following is NOT one of the primary ways in which fertility reduction takes place in the world today?

A) Increased age at marriage B) Use of Contraception C) Abortion

D) Celibacy E) Voluntary or Involuntary infecundity

7) _____________ Which of the following people is most likely to migrate?

A) A 32 year old female U.S. citizen B) A 4 year old Chinese girl

C) A 70 year old Japanese woman D) A 25 year old Mexican male

8) _____________ Which of the following nations does NOT want a higher birth rate?

A) Japan B) Italy C) France D) India E) Russia

9) ____________ Tyson Foods created an ‘underground railroad’ for cheap immigrant labor in their food processing plants. They arranged for false identification cards and really ‘greased the skids’ for an illegal labor pool. What theory of migration does this best fit?

A) Institutional Theory B) Cumulative Causation Theory C) Network Theory

D) Neo-Classical Economic Theory E) Dual Labor Market Theory

10) ____________ Which of the following countries receives the most immigrants?

A) Mexico B) France C) South Africa D) China E) The United States

11) ____________ Which of the following is NOT one of the three models of social change suggested drive enormous changes?

A) The ‘Tipping Point’ model

B) The ‘Sandwich’ model

C) The ‘Catastrophic Event’ Model

D) The ‘Easter Island’ Model

E) All of these are models suggested by Lester Brown

12) ____________ Empirical evidence from what country suggests that a well-written soap opera can have a profound near-term effect on population growth.

A) Mexico B) Guatemala C) Japan D) Kenya E) None of these

13) _____________ If you are living with three roommates in a single family house, the U.S. Census would define your situation as:

A) Family Household B) Non-family Household C) Extended Family

D) The “Friends” Household E) Not defined by the Census

14) _____________ What number best approximates the number of households in the United States (in the year 2000) and is the fraction of them described as “Marriage With Children” growing or shrinking?

A) 50 Million households: % “ Married with Children” is increasing

B) 100 Million households: % “Married with Children” is increasing

C) 50 Million households: % “Married with Children” is decreasing

D) 100 Million households: % “Married with Children” is decreasing

E) 150 Million Households: % “Married with Children” is decreasing

15) ____________ Which of the following statements is FALSE regarding ‘Out-of- Wedlock’ births in the United States:

A) Younger women more likely to have out of wedlock births

B) The welfare system encourages out of wedlock births

C) The rate of “out-of-wedlock” births is decreasing in the U.S. today

D) Out of wedlock birth is increasingly being contributed to by co-habiting couples

E) All the above statements are false

16) ____________ As a typical American ages, their income and net worth tend to also change. Which of the following statements describes the average changes to income and net worth with age in the United States:

A) Net Worth simply decreases with age; Income increases, peaks and decreases

B) Net Worth increases, peaks, and decreases with age; Income increases with age

C) Net Worth increases with age; Income increases with age

D) Both Income and Net Worth increases, peaks, and decreases with age

E) Income remains stable with age; Net Worth increases with age

17) _____________Which of the following countries had a relatively high population growth rate and a relatively high level of economic development?

A) Kuwait B) Australia C) Mexico D) Vietnam E) Bulgaria

18) _____________ Which of the following people is regarded as a “Boomster” who believe the world cannot be overpopulated:

A) Paul Ehrlich B) Lester Brown C) John Weeks D) Julian Simon E) Malthus

19) ____________ Increased food production in the next century will be required to feed the world’s growing population. It will primarily come from:

A) Conversion of non-agricultural lands B) Aquaculture C) Increased crop yields

D) Increased oceanic fish catch E) Hydroponic gardens on the moon

20) ____________ In the book, ‘click’ , Bill Tancer author and search-engine data miner argues that monitoring internet based search engines is:

A) … an infallible way of predicting the winner of reality based TV shows

B) … not very useful for understanding the behavior of young people and cell phone owners

C) … an incredibly useful mechanism for keeping ones finder on the pulse of popular culture

D) All of the above

21) ____________ Approximate values of the world’s total Military Budget and the cost of Lester Brown’s Plan to save civilization are respectively:

A) 1 Trillion, and 1 Billion B) 100 Billion and 77 Million

C) 133 Billion and 1.2 Trillion D) 1.5 Trillion and 200 Billion

E) Approximately the same

22) ____________ The Economist Magazine proposed “The Big Mac” index to measure:

A) Gross National Product B) GDP per capita C) Purchasing Power Parity

D) Level of Economic Development E) None of these

23) ____________ Which of the following are problems with measurements of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)?

A) Comparisons of GDP between countries do not account for Purchasing Power Parity

B) Nations do not account for the loss or gain of natural resources when calculating GDP

C) GDP does not account for the value of unpaid domestic labor

D) Wildfires and other natural disasters can actually make GDP increase

E) All of these are problems with measures with GDP

24) ____________ In general, as per capita income increases, the population growth rate:

A) increases B) decreases C) remains the same D) cannot be predicted

25) ____________ Which regions of the world will experience the greatest population growth in the first half of the 21st century?

A) Urban areas in the developed world.

B) Rural areas in the developing world.

C) Suburban areas in the developed world.

D) Squatter settlements on the edges of cities in the developing world.

E) Refugee camps in both the developed and developing world.

True or False (30 Points at 2 points each): Put A “T” or an “F” indicating True or False respectively in the blank space by each question. No penalty for guessing.

1) ____________ It takes ten thousand tons of water to produce a ton of grain.

2) ____________ Neo-Malthusians believe population policy is an essential element of any economic development strategy.

3) ____________ The global fertility rate is presently 4.7 and is increasing dramatically.

4) ____________ Abortion was made legal in the U.S. in 1973, and remains illegal in Mexico.

5) ______________ More than 75% of American workers drive to work in a car.

6) ______________ The United States imports approximately 1/3 of its oil.

7) ______________ The U.S. grain used to produce fuel for cars in 2009 would feed two billion people for one year.

8) ______________ Polio was almost eradicated in 2003 but one obstacle to its eradication was that several states in Nigeria refused the vaccine because they thought it would cause AIDS and/or sterility.

9) ______________ Migration of Europeans to North America was one of the major migration flows in human history.

10) _____________ In India, kerosene lamps account for ~1% of all residential lighting but account for ~29% of residential CO2 emissions (according to Plan B 4.0 book).

11) _____________ In general, fertility decreases for people immediately after they migrate.

12) _____________ Leter Brown’s plan calls for reduced income taxes and increased energy taxes.

13) _____________ As a country, the United States has already passed ‘Peak Oil’ (i.e. domestic oil production has reached a maximum and dropped off).

14) _____________ The fundamental driving force of most international migration today is economic.

15) _____________ The population of Blacks and Hispanics in the United States today is approximately equal (within 5% of one another).

Written Answers (95 Points from 5 & 15 Points questions): The following questions require written, computational, and/or graphical responses.

Short Answer: The French use a riddle to teach schoolchildren the nature of exponential growth. A lily pond, so the riddle goes, contains a single leaf. Each day the number of leaves doubles—two leaves the second day, four the third, eight the fourth, and so on. “If the pond is full on the thirtieth day, at what point is it half full?” Answer the riddle correctly and explain what challenge to civilization Lester Brown is trying to explain with this riddle. (5 Points)

Short Answer: Draw a graph of age specific fertility rates throughout the course of an average American woman’s life. Draw another curve for the age specific fertility rate of an average Kenyan woman’s life on the same set of axes. Why are they different? How has in-vitro fertilization and other reproductive technology changed the shape of the American woman’s age specific fertility rate curve in recent years? Explain. (5 points)

Short Answer: Explain two ways in which the world’s oceans can reach a ‘tipping point’ from which the rate at which the earth’s average temperature increases will accelerate dramatically.(5 Points)

Short Answer: Briefly summarize the main points of the 3 U.N. Population conferences, include the dates and cities in which the conferences took place. (5 Points)

Short Answer: The Figure below is a population pyramid for the United States in the year 2000. What information does it convey? How can this pyramid be used to ‘think demographically’? (5 Points)

[pic]

Short Answer: Harlem Gro Brundtland is often credited for coining the phrase ‘Sustainable Development’ and it is often defined as: ‘meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations to meet their needs’. How useful do you think the ideas of sustainability and sustainable development are in the world today and do you see them related to ideas of carrying capacity, population, and consumption? Explain. (5 Points)

Short Answer: Lester Brown’s book states: Failing states provide the greatest threat to global order and stability. As Foreign Policy magazine notes, “World leaders once worried about who was amassing power; now they worry about the absence of it.” What are the characteristics of a ‘Failing State’ and how and why do they present problems with respect to order and stability? (5 Points)

Long Answer: Describe the theory of the Demographic Transition. Explain how applying this theory to the demographic trajectories of developing countries today is problematic because of “That was then, This is now” problems. (15 Points)

Long Answer: Consider Juan and Juanita (two undocumented migrants) migrating from Mexico to the United States. Assume they have two children after they arrive in the United States. Explain how the U.S. population increased from this story – spell out what aspects of the population increase were from migration and what aspects were from natural increase. Why is this controversial? (15 Points)

Long Answer: Who was Margaret Sanger? Tell me about the life, times, activities, and opinions of Margaret Sanger. What major non-governmental organization was she instrumental in establishing? Who was Anthony Comstock and what relationship did Margaret Sanger have with him? How has Margaret Sanger influenced your life? (15 Points)

Long Answer: The book Plan B 3.0 paints a pretty bleak picture of the situation humanity is faced with at the beginning of the 21st century. Nonetheless, Lester Brown does present a Response Plan (The book is called ‘Plan B 4.0’ (). (15 Points)

1) What are the major goals of Lester Brown’s response plan?

2) How does Lester Brown propose we go about reaching those goals?

3) How much does Brown believe reaching these goals would cost and who does Lester Brown believe should foot the bill for these programs?

4) Why do you personally think it is a good or bad set of ideas and plans?

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download