Lesson Y9-U06-L01

Y9-U06-L01 A Crowded Planet: Population and Resources Quiz: KS3 Geography, Unit 18

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson Y9-U06-L01, A Crowded Planet: Population and Resources: 20 multiple choice questions for the KS3 Geography (National Curriculum), Unit 18: Year 9: Contested Worlds: Resources, Conflict and Geopolitics, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. What is overpopulation?

    • When a country has more farmland than it can ever use
    • When there are too many people for the resources in an area to support well
    • When an area has very few people living in it at all
    • When every family in a town has more than three children and no one has a job at all

  2. What is a resource?

    • Only the buildings that people live and work inside
    • Only the money a government keeps in its national bank
    • Anything people use to meet a need, such as food, water or energy
    • Only the minerals that are dug out of the ground

  3. What is the carrying capacity of an area?

    • The number of schools that can be built in the area
    • The number of people who visit the area in one year
    • The largest population the area can support without running out of resources
    • The total weight of all goods carried in and out of it each day by lorries and trains

  4. Roughly what was the world population in 1800?

    • About 2.5 billion people
    • About 4.1 billion people
    • About 1 billion people
    • About 8.2 billion people

  5. Roughly what was the world population in 2025?

    • About 10 billion people
    • About 8.2 billion people
    • About 4.1 billion people
    • About 6.1 billion people

  6. Which thinker is the pessimist about population growth?

    • Malthus, who argued that population grows faster than food
    • Boserup, who argued that more people create new ideas for growing food
    • Neither thinker ever wrote anything about population and food
    • Both Malthus and Boserup were equally optimistic about the future

  7. According to Boserup, what does a shortage of food tend to trigger?

    • A decision by everyone to stop having children
    • New ideas and technologies that increase the food supply
    • An end to all farming within the local area
    • A fall in the population as people move to other countries

  8. Why does a growing population increase demand for resources?

    • Each new person is paid a wage by the local council
    • Each new person automatically creates a new resource on the land
    • Each new person needs food, water and energy every day
    • Each new person reduces the need for any resources at all

  9. Which country in the density chart has the highest population density?

    • Australia, at about 3 people per square km, which is the lowest density shown
    • India, at about 480 people per square km
    • Bangladesh, at about 1300 people per square km
    • UK, at about 280 people per square km

  10. Which country in the density chart has the lowest population density?

    • Australia, at about 3 people per square km
    • India, at about 480 people per square km
    • Brazil, at about 25 people per square km, which is well above Australia's figure
    • UK, at about 280 people per square km

  11. When did world population start rising most steeply in the period shown?

    • Between 1800 and 1850, when the line was flattest
    • Between 1850 and 1900, when the line was almost level
    • After 1950, when the line rises most steeply
    • Before 1800, when the population was very small

  12. Why did world population grow faster after 1950?

    • Better food, medicine and clean water cut the death rate sharply
    • Most people stopped having any children at all after 1950
    • Farmland was all abandoned, so people had to move to towns
    • Migration to other planets began to take people away

  13. Which two words describe the trend in world population from 1950 to 2025?

    • Gentle and slow decrease
    • Random and irregular change over the whole period shown
    • Steep and accelerating growth
    • Flat and steady decline

  14. Which set of data would show overpopulation pressure on resources most clearly?

    • Low density combined with very few people living there
    • Medium density with a large number of schools nearby
    • High density combined with limited water and farmland
    • Low density combined with plenty of water and farmland

  15. Why are the Malthusian and Boserupian views described as opposing?

    • They both argue that population should be limited by law
    • They were written in different centuries, so they cannot be compared
    • They use the same evidence but reach opposite conclusions about the future
    • They ignore food supply entirely in their arguments

  16. Which is a suitable example of a resource that a growing population needs more of?

    • Clean drinking water
    • A museum display about ancient Egypt
    • A postcard from a faraway holiday destination
    • A traffic light at a busy crossing

  17. Which statement is a fair judgement on Malthus's prediction?

    • It was irrelevant, because no one has ever studied food supply
    • It was not fully correct, because food output rose with new technology
    • It was completely correct, with mass famine across every region
    • It was wrong, because the population has never grown at all

  18. A pupil says 'The population graph shows that the world is running out of food today'. What is the best response?

    • The graph is about tourism, so it cannot be used at all
    • The graph shows population only, so it cannot prove food is running out
    • The graph proves the pupil is correct, because the line rises
    • The graph shows food production, so the pupil is correct

  19. Why might population density alone be an unreliable measure of pressure on resources?

    • It always gives the same value for every country on Earth
    • It ignores wealth, technology and imports that also affect resource use
    • It can only be calculated for countries that have no towns
    • It counts the number of people in the area far too precisely

  20. Why might population growth be limited by the land available in a country?

    • Because land stops growing crops once the population passes a fixed level
    • Because the land can only produce a fixed amount of food and water
    • Because land is always owned by the government and cannot be used
    • Because land is only used for building roads and never for farming

All KS3 Geography quizzes