3.2.5.1 Resource development Quiz: AQA Geography, Unit 2

The 20 questions

1. A stock resource is best described as:

   • A resource that is always found in the ocean
   • A resource that renews continuously, such as solar energy
   • A resource that can be grown on farmland each year
   • A finite resource that does not renew on a human timescale, such as coal or oil

2. Which resource is an example of a flow resource?

   • Natural gas
   • Coal
   • Copper ore
   • Solar energy

3. Which category of reserve has the highest level of geological confidence?

   • Inferred resources
   • Speculative deposits in unexplored areas
   • Possible resources
   • Measured reserves

4. The resource frontier is best described as:

   • The boundary between urban and rural land
   • The edge of a national border across which resources are exported
   • The point where a resource becomes economically or technically accessible as technology and prices change
   • The depth of the deepest well ever drilled

5. The concept of resource peak refers to:

   • The highest price a resource ever reaches on world markets
   • The total amount of resource in the ground at the start of exploration
   • The point at which the rate of production of a finite resource reaches its maximum before declining
   • The date when a resource is first discovered in a region

6. Which stage of natural resource development comes first over time?

   • Exploitation, followed by development and then exploration
   • Exploration only, with no later stages
   • Development, followed by exploration and then exploitation
   • Exploration, followed by exploitation and then development of infrastructure

7. An Environmental Impact Assessment for a mining project is carried out in order to:

   • Decide the price of ore on world markets, setting the figure that buyers and sellers will use when trading across each global exchange
   • Measure the total weight of ore extracted over a year, recorded at the mine gate and reported to shareholders in each financial year
   • Calculate the profit margin of the mining company, comparing projected revenue with the costs of labour, equipment and fuel over each year
   • Identify and predict environmental effects of a development and set out measures to reduce them

8. Which feature best defines sustainable resource development?

   • Meeting present needs while allowing future generations to meet theirs
   • Using resources only in areas with no population, which avoids every human impact and so counts as development in the broadest sense
   • Ignoring environmental impacts because they are local, since damage confined to one site is considered acceptable
   • Maximising extraction as quickly as possible to lower costs, which brings the greatest returns to investors in the early years

9. A geologist estimates that a mineral deposit is partly sampled and its quantity is reasonably well established, but the rest is only predicted from limited data. Which reserve categories apply?

   • Possible resources for the entire deposit, because the whole body is regarded as speculative until a full drilling programme is completed
   • Measured reserves for the entire deposit, since the whole body has been sampled in detail and its quantity confirmed to a high standard
   • Measured reserves for the predicted part only, with the sampled portion classed as the least certain category of resource
   • Indicated resources for the partly sampled part and inferred resources for the predicted part

10. Which argument best evaluates whether a finite resource will become scarce?

    • Scarcity cannot occur for any resource in any circumstances, since every mineral is replaced naturally by the geology of the planet
    • Scarcity depends only on the colour of the resource, since darker materials are harder to extract and so become scarcer over time
    • Scarcity is determined only by the size of the known reserves, so a larger stock always means that a resource can never run short
    • Scarcity depends on the resource frontier, technology and substitution as well as the size of reserves

11. A mine has measured reserves of 12 million tonnes and produces 0.6 million tonnes per year. Ignoring any new discoveries, how many years of production remain?

    • 7.2 years
    • 20 years
    • 200 years
    • 12.6 years

12. A resource is classified as possible rather than measured or indicated. Which implication is most accurate?

    • It is a renewable flow resource that replenishes itself, so its quantity is restored naturally after each period of extraction
    • Its existence and quantity are speculative and less certain, so it cannot yet be relied on for planning
    • It has the same certainty as a measured reserve, since both categories rest on identical sampling and assay evidence in every deposit
    • It is certain to be extracted within a decade, because every resource classed as possible is always developed within the first ten years

13. Which combination describes the stages of natural resource development over time?

    • Only marketing and sale of resources at the end of the process, with buyers finding the product after all extraction is complete
    • Exploitation of resources without any prior search, with mines opened first and deposits only mapped once extraction is under way
    • Exploration to find deposits, exploitation to extract them and development of supporting infrastructure
    • Retirement, rehabilitation and recycling of all resources, with each deposit closed, restored and reused once its output has fallen

14. Which argument best supports the claim that resource peaks are a useful concept for policy planning?

    • They make all resource planning unnecessary, since markets always respond in time to any peak without any policy
    • They highlight when supply constraints may tighten, allowing planning for substitutes and efficiency
    • They prove that scarcity can never affect prices, because production always adjusts smoothly to meet demand at every stage of the cycle
    • They show exactly how much resource remains with no uncertainty, since the peak marks the precise point at which all reserves are used up

15. Which statement about EIA and sustainable resource development is most accurate?

    • EIA contributes to sustainability by identifying impacts early so that they can be mitigated or avoided
    • EIA ensures that all projects are approved regardless of impacts, because the assessment exists to confirm each development
    • EIA is only a formality with no effect on project design, since assessments are completed after plans are already fixed
    • EIA applies only after a resource has been completely used up, as a final review of the site once extraction has been finished

16. A resource development project finds that the cost of extraction rises as easily accessible deposits are used up. Which concept best explains this?

    • Decrease in demand for the resource due to lower prices, as buyers switch away from the product when its price falls across markets
    • Movement of the resource frontier towards more difficult and costly sites
    • Growth of the resource in the ground over time, since natural processes keep adding material to known deposits year after year
    • Improvement of the resource frontier to cheaper sites, which occurs when new discoveries lower the average cost of each deposit

17. Which measure would best show progress in sustainable resource management over time?

    • Rising recycling and efficiency rates alongside falling extraction per unit of output
    • Falling investment in efficiency and technology, with firms spending less on processes that reduce the material used in each product
    • Rising extraction per unit of output with no recycling, since each unit of product is made from more newly mined material each year
    • Increasing waste per unit of product manufactured, which means that each item leaves more material to be discarded at the end of its life

18. Which argument best evaluates the claim that stock resources will always become more expensive over time?

    • Prices always rise steadily because the resource is finite, since each unit extracted leaves less material for the next buyer to purchase
    • Prices depend on demand, technology and new discoveries as well as physical scarcity, so the trend is not guaranteed
    • Prices never change because they are fixed by governments, which set a single price for each resource and hold it for decades
    • Prices fall whenever a resource is finite, because scarcity reduces demand and leads buyers to pay less for each remaining unit

19. Which pair best describes the difference between a resource and a reserve?

    • A resource is renewable, while a reserve is always non-renewable, so only reserves can be replenished through natural processes
    • A resource is all material of potential economic interest, while a reserve is the part that can be economically extracted now
    • Resources and reserves are identical in all cases, since both terms describe exactly the same quantity of material in every deposit
    • A reserve is all material in the ground, while a resource is only the part extracted each year from the working mine

20. A country invests heavily in exploration but finds few new deposits over a decade. Which implication is most likely for the resource frontier?

    • The frontier will move outward rapidly because of this investment, as every new survey opens a large field of deposits to extraction
    • The frontier will disappear because exploration always fails, so no resource can ever be developed beyond the current boundary
    • The frontier may stop moving outward, increasing pressure to use alternatives or increase efficiency
    • Exploration has no effect on the frontier, since the boundary of economic resources is set by geology and cannot be moved by surveys

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