THE MODELS
SCALE & PATTERN
CAUSE & EFFECT
COMPARE
TRAP ANSWERS
100
Rostow's model moves a country through five of these on a single path to development.
What are stages of economic growth? MC TIP — Order: traditional society, preconditions for takeoff, takeoff, drive to maturity, age of high mass consumption. Every country, same path.
100
Globally the core holds the wealth, but the semi-periphery matters because it does this.
What is both exploit the periphery and get exploited by the core — acting as a buffer and a route for upward mobility? MC TIP — China, India, Brazil, and Mexico are the standard semi-periphery examples.
100
Comparative advantage and lower shipping costs caused this process in core-country manufacturing.
What is outsourcing and offshoring, producing deindustrialization? MC TIP — Containerization is the technology that made it economical. Name the technology and the policy together.
100
One says every country follows the same five-stage path; the other says wealth in one zone depends on poverty in another.
What are Rostow's stages and Wallerstein's world-systems theory? MC TIP — Rostow is optimistic and linear; Wallerstein is structural and relational. Naming that contrast is usually the credited answer.
100
The trap: an option says Rostow's model explains why all countries eventually develop. What is the flaw?
What is that it ignores colonialism, unequal trade relationships, and resource constraints — not every country can follow Britain's path? MC TIP — When a model is criticized on the exam, the criticism is usually its ASSUMPTIONS. Name one.
200
Wallerstein's model replaces Rostow's stages with these three interdependent zones.
What are core, semi-periphery, and periphery? MC TIP — World-systems theory says development is RELATIONAL — the core's wealth depends on the periphery's cheap labor and raw materials.
200
A country's national HDI is high, but regional data shows this — name the pattern.
What is uneven development, with core regions far ahead of peripheral ones inside the same country? MC TIP — Core-periphery works at EVERY scale: global, national, and within a metropolitan area.
200
Investment in female education and workforce participation causes these two effects the CED names.
What are lower fertility and higher household income and economic growth? MC TIP — It is the highest-leverage development intervention in the course, and it links Unit 7 straight back to Unit 2.
200
One locates near the raw material; the other locates near the consumer.
What are bulk-reducing and bulk-gaining industries? MC TIP — Ask which weighs more, the inputs or the output. That single question answers every Weber problem.
200
The trap: a stem gives a country's rising GDP as proof its people are better off. What is the problem?
What is that GDP ignores distribution, the informal sector, and environmental cost? MC TIP — Growth is not development. That one sentence answers a surprising number of Unit 7 questions.
300
Weber's least cost theory identifies these three factors that determine an industry's optimal location.
What are transportation, labor, and agglomeration? MC TIP — Transportation dominates. A bulk-reducing industry locates near the RAW MATERIAL; a bulk-gaining industry locates near the MARKET.
300
The spatial pattern manufacturing followed in the United States from 1970 to today.
What is relocation from the Northeast and Midwest Rust Belt to the Sun Belt and then offshore? MC TIP — Drivers: cheaper non-union labor, lower taxes, air conditioning, and finally cheaper overseas labor.
300
Dependence on a single exported commodity causes this economic vulnerability.
What is exposure to global price volatility the producing country cannot control? MC TIP — Colonial plantation and extraction economies built this dependence. Diversification is the credited solution.
300
One measures output inside the borders; the other measures output by a country's citizens wherever they are.
What are GDP and GNP (GNI)? MC TIP — A country with many citizens working abroad has GNI well above GDP. Remittances are the mechanism — Unit 2 again.
300
The trap: students place a soft-drink bottling plant near the sugar source. Name the correct location and why.
What is near the consumer market, because adding water makes it bulk-gaining? MC TIP — Bottling is the textbook bulk-gaining example and the textbook student mistake.
400
Weber would locate a steel mill near its iron ore because steel making is this kind of industry.
What is bulk-reducing (weight-losing)? MC TIP — The finished product weighs less than the inputs, so you ship the lighter thing farther. Soft-drink bottling is the bulk-gaining opposite.
400
A commodity chain describes this about a single manufactured product.
What is the sequence of locations where each step of its production, assembly, and distribution occurs? MC TIP — Commodity chains make globalization spatial. An FRQ about a smartphone is a commodity chain question.
400
The rise of the tertiary and quaternary sectors caused this change in where economic activity locates.
What is clustering in world cities and technopoles near universities and skilled labor? MC TIP — Agglomeration from Unit 6 is the mechanism. Silicon Valley is the named technopole.
400
One is a single economic number; the other combines health, education, and income into one score.
What are GDP per capita and the Human Development Index? MC TIP — HDI is better but still an AVERAGE. Neither captures inequality inside the country.
400
The trap: an answer claims outsourcing only harms the core country. What is missing?
What is that consumers gain lower prices, firms gain profit, and the receiving country gains jobs and investment? MC TIP — Only, always, never — absolute language is the distractor flag across the whole course.
500
The model explaining why growth concentrates at a few nodes and spreads outward through backwash and spread effects.
What is the core-periphery model (Friedmann)? MC TIP — Backwash drains labor and capital INTO the core. Spread effects push development OUT. Which dominates is the tested question.
500
The Gender Inequality Index reveals this pattern that per capita GDP alone conceals.
What is that women's health, education, and political representation can lag badly even in a wealthy country? MC TIP — Composite indices exist because single measures hide distribution. That is the point of the whole topic.
500
Neoliberal structural adjustment programs required borrowing countries to do this, with contested results.
What is privatize industries, cut public spending, and open markets to trade? MC TIP — The CED wants the critique too: cuts to health and education hit the poorest hardest.
500
One removes trade barriers between member states; the other guarantees producers a minimum price.
What are free trade agreements and fair trade? MC TIP — Free trade maximizes efficiency. Fair trade targets equity for producers. They can pull in opposite directions.
500
The trap: a question asks why the periphery stays poor, and an option blames a lack of natural resources. What is the better answer?
What is unequal trade relationships, commodity dependence, and a colonial legacy of extraction — many peripheral countries are resource-RICH? MC TIP — The resource curse: abundant resources plus weak institutions and external control produces slower development, not faster.
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