Core: Changing population practice questions.

More than 90 % of Egypt's population lived on about 5 % of the national territory in 2020, in a narrow strip along the Nile and its delta. Which physical factor is the main reason for this pattern at the national scale?

• Low relief and gentle gradients across the desert plateau
• A cooler microclimate created by evaporation from the river
• Reliable fresh water and fertile alluvial soils
• Shelter from prevailing winds provided by the delta

Answer: Reliable fresh water and fertile alluvial soils

Egypt's desert receives almost no rainfall, so settlement follows the only perennial water supply and the silt-enriched soils it deposits. Relief and wind shelter vary little across the country and therefore cannot explain the concentration.

A geographer comparing Norway and Nepal wants one measure that combines income with health and education outcomes rather than income alone. Which indicator should be chosen?

• Human Development Index (HDI)
• Gross national income per capita at purchasing power parity
• Gini coefficient
• Infant mortality rate

Answer: Human Development Index (HDI)

HDI is a composite of life expectancy, years of schooling and GNI per capita, so it captures social outcomes that a purely economic measure misses. The Gini coefficient describes the distribution of income, not its level.

The table shows data for four countries in the same year. Which country combines a high average income with the more unequal distribution of that income?

• Country W
• Country X
• Country Y
• Country Z

Answer: Country X

The Gini coefficient rises with inequality on a 0-1 scale, so the answer needs both a high GNI per capita and the higher of the two high-income Gini values. Country Z is the most unequal but has a low average income, which is the usual trap.

The population pyramid of Qatar in 2020 shows a very wide bulge of males aged 25-44 set against a narrow female profile at the same ages. Which process best explains this shape?

• A recent and sustained baby boom
• Unusually high male infant mortality
• Large-scale contract labour immigration
• Emigration of young families with children

Answer: Large-scale contract labour immigration

Age-sex structure responds to migration as well as to births and deaths, and a sex-selective bulge confined to the economically active ages can only come from migration. No plausible change in fertility or mortality produces a distortion in one sex and one age band.

The table shows the components of population change for a country over one decade. Which statement is supported by the data?

• Natural increase was the larger component of population growth
• The total population of the country fell over the decade
• Net migration over the decade was negative
• Net migration added more people than natural increase

Answer: Net migration added more people than natural increase

Natural increase is 620 000 - 540 000 = 80 000 while net migration is 310 000 - 180 000 = +130 000, so migration dominated growth. Reading the immigration figure without subtracting emigration is the usual mistake.

Filling the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze, China required about 1.3 million valley residents to leave their homes between 1993 and 2008, while the electricity and the flood protection produced serve cities far downstream. Which statement best describes how the costs and benefits of this displacement were distributed?

• Displaced valley residents bore the costs; distant urban users gained the benefits
• Costs and benefits were shared evenly between the flooded valley and the downstream cities
• The resettled households themselves decided where the reservoir would be built
• Downstream cities bore the costs while the flooded valley gained cheap electricity

Answer: Displaced valley residents bore the costs; distant urban users gained the benefits

A forced migration question asks who decided and who gains, not only how many people moved: the resettlement was planned by the state and the benefits are consumed hundreds of kilometres away. Answers that stop at the number displaced describe the event without analysing power.