3.2.4.5 Population ecology and its application to human populations Quiz: AQA Geography, Unit 2

The 20 questions

1. The concept of carrying capacity refers to:

   • The maximum speed at which a population can migrate
   • The number of births each year in a country
   • The maximum population size that an environment can sustain indefinitely given available resources
   • The total weight of all people living in one city

2. Which term describes a population that is larger than the environment can sustain in the long term?

   • Underpopulation
   • Carrying capacity
   • Overpopulation
   • Optimum population

3. An optimum population is best described as:

   • A population that has exactly zero growth in every year
   • The population size that maximises the wellbeing of people given the resources available
   • The largest population the planet can physically hold
   • A population that has no interaction with its environment

4. Which concept measures the area of productive land and water needed to support a population's consumption and waste?

   • Demographic dividend
   • Ecological footprint
   • Natural increase
   • Dependency ratio

5. In the population, resources and pollution model, which feedback mechanism tends to stabilise population growth?

   • Positive feedback, where rising population increases resources and so accelerates growth
   • Positive feedback that always leads to permanent equilibrium
   • No feedback because the population is isolated
   • Negative feedback, where rising population reduces resources and so slows growth

6. Which statement best describes Malthus's central argument?

   • Food production grows faster than population, so famine will never occur
   • Population growth has no relationship to food supply
   • Population tends to grow geometrically while food production grows arithmetically, so checks such as famine are needed
   • Population and food grow at the same rate in every society

7. Which perspective argues that technological innovation and human ingenuity can expand the carrying capacity of the Earth?

   • Boserup's argument that population pressure always reduces farm productivity
   • Malthus's view that population growth always outstrips food supply
   • Simon's view that human ingenuity and market responses overcome resource limits
   • Ehrlich's warning that resource depletion will cause mass famine

8. Boserup argued that population pressure can:

   • Reduce the number of people farming in the long term only
   • Stimulate agricultural intensification and technical change to raise output
   • Always lead to falling food output and famine
   • Have no effect on agricultural systems

9. Which argument best evaluates the Malthusian view of population and resources?

   • It identified real limits, but underestimated technological change and the ability of societies to adapt
   • It has been entirely disproved by historical evidence, because food output has risen faster than population in every decade since
   • It was entirely correct about all past and future food crises, since every famine has followed the path Malthus described
   • It is irrelevant because resources are unlimited, so no population pressure could ever arise and no theory about limits is needed at all

10. A region's population doubles while its agricultural land is unchanged. Which concept best describes the change in pressure on resources?

    • A change in the age structure only, with the older share of the population growing while total numbers and land use remain the same
    • A fall in population density because land is unchanged, since a fixed area of farmland supports fewer people over time
    • No change because density depends only on birth rate, since the number of people per hectare is set by fertility alone in every case
    • A rise in population density relative to land and resources

11. Which pattern would indicate that a population has reached its carrying capacity?

    • Population growth levels off as resource limits and death rates rise to match births
    • Population falls to zero in the first year, as the environment cannot support a single person and the settlement is abandoned at once
    • Resources increase at the same rate as the population indefinitely, so that every additional person brings enough extra food and water
    • Population growth continues at the same rate indefinitely, because resources grow alongside numbers and no limit is reached

12. Which combination of factors would most likely increase the ecological footprint of a population?

    • Smaller population and lower total resource demand, because fewer people means fewer homes, cars and meals across the whole region
    • Less waste generation and more recycling of materials, which return resources to use and shrink the land needed to support residents
    • Higher consumption per person, greater energy use and more imported goods
    • Lower consumption, more local food and reduced energy use, which keep each person's demand within local supply

13. Which argument best supports the view that population size alone does not determine resource pressure?

    • Consumption levels and technology strongly affect how much pressure a given population creates
    • Only population size matters for resource pressure in every case, since the number of people alone decides how much they use
    • Resource pressure is unrelated to consumption levels, because the same amount of land and water is needed whatever people consume
    • Technology has no effect on resource use, since efficiency gains cannot change how much land, water or energy each person needs

14. Which statement about overpopulation and underpopulation is most accurate?

    • Neither concept applies to any real population, because every society is at its optimum level whatever its size or density
    • Both can cause problems, since too few people may struggle to sustain services and too many may exceed resources
    • Underpopulation always causes more resource pressure than overpopulation, because a few people must use the same land and services
    • Overpopulation is always beneficial for economic development, since more workers and consumers push up output in every economy

15. A population of 1,000 is supported by a resource base that can sustain 800 people. Which description is most accurate?

    • The population exactly matches the optimum at every time, so no change in numbers would affect resource use in the region
    • The population exceeds its carrying capacity and resource depletion is likely
    • The population has no relation to the resource base, because numbers and supply move independently in every region of the world
    • The population is below its carrying capacity and can grow, since the resource base still has room to support a larger number of people

16. Which feedback pattern could amplify a population decline in a region after a drought?

    • Negative feedback that increases the food supply automatically, since fewer people always leave more food for those who remain
    • No feedback at all because drought does not affect people, so food supply and population move on separate and unrelated paths
    • Negative feedback that stabilises the population at its previous size, because the decline is reversed as soon as numbers fall
    • Positive feedback, where falling food supply leads to migration and further loss of population

17. Which argument best evaluates the usefulness of carrying capacity as a concept for human populations?

    • It is fixed for all human societies across time, so every population has the same limit whatever its technology or institutions
    • It applies only to bacteria and has no link to humans, because ecological concepts are confined to microbial populations alone
    • It is useful as a framework, but human carrying capacity changes with technology, trade and institutions
    • It is useless because humans are not subject to any resource limits, since people can always create new land, water and food supplies

18. Which thinker is associated with the 1968 book The Population Bomb and with neo-Malthusian warnings about population growth?

    • Julian Simon
    • Ester Boserup
    • Paul Ehrlich
    • Thomas Malthus

19. A region has a carrying capacity of 50,000 people and a population of 62,000. By what percentage is the population above carrying capacity?

    • 24%
    • 124%
    • 19%
    • 12%

20. Which argument best links the population, resources and pollution model to policy choices?

    • Policy should focus only on raising birth rates to match resources, since the number of people is the only lever that matters
    • Pollution is irrelevant to the feedback loops within the model, because only population size and food output are linked in it
    • Policy cannot influence the model because its feedbacks are fixed by nature, so no decision by government can change the outcome
    • Reducing consumption and pollution can ease pressure on resources even if population size stays the same

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