Lesson Y9-U01-L05

Y9-U01-L05 Global Supply Chains: Following a Smartphone Quiz: KS3 Geography, Unit 13

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson Y9-U01-L05, Global Supply Chains: Following a Smartphone: 20 multiple choice questions for the KS3 Geography (National Curriculum), Unit 13: Year 9: A Globalised World: Economies, Trade and Power, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. Which stage of a smartphone's supply chain is the primary sector?

    • Mining cobalt from the ground
    • Selling the phone in a shop
    • Designing the phone in an office
    • Packaging the phone for delivery

  2. In a smartphone's supply chain, where is cobalt usually mined?

    • California, in the USA
    • Taiwan, in East Asia
    • Chile, in South America, where the rich lithium deposits are mined and refined before shipping
    • The Democratic Republic of Congo, in central Africa

  3. In which country is lithium for phone batteries refined?

    • Chile
    • Vietnam
    • Taiwan
    • South Korea

  4. Where are the microchips in a phone made?

    • The Democratic Republic of Congo
    • Chile
    • Taiwan
    • The United Kingdom

  5. In a smartphone's supply chain, where is the phone typically designed?

    • Shanghai, China
    • California, USA
    • London, United Kingdom
    • The Democratic Republic of Congo

  6. Where is the phone assembled?

    • The United Kingdom only
    • Taiwan or South Korea only
    • China or Vietnam
    • Chile or Brazil

  7. Roughly how far can a single phone travel before it reaches a UK shop?

    • About 8,000 km
    • Over 80,000 km
    • About 8 million km
    • About 800 km

  8. What is a supply chain?

    • A line of shops selling one brand across a country
    • A chain of ships that only carry raw cobalt from mines in Africa to the factories in Asia each year
    • The full network of stages that makes a product, from raw materials to the shop
    • A list of prices charged by a single factory

  9. What is a commodity?

    • A factory worker's wage for one hour of work
    • A finished product sold only in luxury shops to wealthy customers who pay the highest prices
    • A raw material or basic good that is traded, such as cobalt or oil
    • A tax paid on goods that cross a border

  10. What does 'value added' mean in a supply chain?

    • The total amount of tax paid to the government
    • The number of workers employed in one factory, counted at the end of each year by its managers
    • The extra worth put on a product at each stage of making it
    • The cost of shipping goods across the ocean

  11. Which stage of the phone's supply chain takes the largest share of value?

    • Raw materials
    • Components
    • Assembly, where the separate parts are joined into a finished phone in a factory
    • Design and retail

  12. A £600 phone's value is split: raw materials 2%, assembly 5%, components 33%, design and retail 60%. What share goes to raw materials?

    • 33 percent
    • 2 percent
    • 5 percent
    • 60 percent

  13. A £600 phone's value is split: raw materials 2%, assembly 5%, components 33%, design and retail 60%. What share goes to assembly?

    • 5 percent
    • 2 percent
    • 60 percent
    • 33 percent

  14. On a £600 phone, what is the value of the design and retail stage?

    • £600
    • £120
    • £360
    • £33

  15. On a £600 phone, what is the value of the assembly stage at 5 percent?

    • £360
    • £198
    • £30
    • £5

  16. On a £600 phone, what is the value of the components stage at 33 percent?

    • £540
    • £330
    • £198
    • £66

  17. Which question is a sensible first step when judging how reliable a source is?

    • How many pages it has
    • What colour its cover is
    • Whether it uses a serif font
    • Who wrote it, and why

  18. Why might a company's own website be a less reliable source about its supply chain?

    • Websites cannot contain any dates or data
    • All company websites are always written by governments
    • Company websites are banned from showing any facts
    • The company wrote it and may be biased to protect its image

  19. Why should the date of supply-chain data be checked?

    • Older data is always more accurate than newer data
    • Dates have no effect on the reliability of any source
    • Only the first page of a source counts as evidence
    • Supply-chain data can go out of date quickly

  20. Which judgement about the phone's supply chain is best supported by the evidence?

    • Every stage earns exactly the same value, so no country gains more than another
    • Assembly always creates most of the value, so China keeps all the profit
    • Raw materials come from Africa and South America, while most value is added by design and retail in rich countries
    • Raw materials add the most value, so mining countries keep most of the money earned from every phone sold

All KS3 Geography quizzes