English Language Test - 11

Direction: These questions are based on the information given below:

Exporting means the sale of an item produced, stored or processed in the supplying firm’s home country in a foreign land. Some firms regard exporting as little more than a convenient way of increasing total sales; others see it as a crucial element of overall corporate strategy. ‘Passive’ exporting occurs when a firm receives orders from abroad without having canvassed them. ‘Active’ exporting, conversely, results from a strategic decision to establish proper systems for organising the export function and for procuring foreign sales. Exporting may be direct or indirect. With direct exporting, the exporter assumes full responsibility for the transfer of goods to foreign customers, customs clearance, local advertising and final sale of the goods. Indirect exporting uses intermediaries. Export merchants, for example, reside in the exporter’s country, acting as principals in exports’ transactions (that is, buying and selling on their own accounts). They are wholesalers who operate in foreign markets through their own salespeople, stockists and, perhaps, retail outlets. Exporters are relieved of administrative problems, documentation, shipping, internal transport and so on, and do not carry the risks of market failure. However, they lose control over the presentation of their products and foreign sales may fall because of poor foreign retailing.

Exporting is cheap and convenient to administer and carries no risk of failure of direct foreign investments. The revenues from foreign sales accrue entirely to the exporting company (rather than it having to repatriate profits from foreign subsidiaries), and the firm builds up a network of contacts of foreign agents, distributors, retail outlets, etc. Direct exporting provides total control over the selling process, prevents the need to share know-how with foreign partners and cuts out expensive intermediaries. Exporting can be highly profitable, although the development of an export facility can place severe strain on the business’s resources.

Direction: These questions are based on the information given below:

Does the “soft technology” of using organic waste as fertiliser still have any place? Not really, unless for a kitchen garden. Modern farming demands industrially produced chemicals. To gauge the productivity of food crops in any country, if the amount of fertiliser used is selected as an indicator, we can use kilograms per hectare for calculation and comparison of the fertiliser scenarios. With this measure in mind, the results show that the amount of fertiliser used in Germany is 300 times of that used in Bangladesh or that used in the North American countries is 20 times the fertiliser used in all of Africa. The law of diminishing returns says that, provided all the other factors are constant, when the investment in an area increases, the overall return increases only at a declining rate. Thus, an extra ton of fertiliser used in a developed country will only produce three extra tons, while a ton of fertiliser used in an area where no fertiliser has been used previously can produce ten extra tons of grain, which is the situation with most of the underdeveloped world. For instance, Scotland uses 400 kilograms per acre of Nitrogen-based fertilisers for wheat crops now as compared to 100 kilograms per acre three decades ago. However, the increase in the yield has only been from 110 to 150 kilograms per acre.

Another conspicuous truth is that the third world countries consume 15 per cent of the fertiliser used globally and only produce 10 per cent. The rest comes from imports; they are paying millions of dollars for fertilisers - there is an acute shortage. Kenya imports about 500,000 tons of fertiliser every year, which is just enough to produce 20 million bags of maize, but the country needs 34 million bags for consumption every year. Developed nations have a surplus of fertiliser, which is going to decline gradually. Asian countries are largely self-sufficient, but the small ones are the ones that suffer the most. What an irony that the third world countries do not have enough resources and yet are slammed for underproduction of food. Even from the bitty amounts of fertiliser available to the underdeveloped countries, a significant amount is directed towards cash crops and the small farmers who are primarily food producers have to go without it. To milk the situation for all it’s worth, the United States has removed all restrictions on the area of cropland put into production because it knows of the food situation in the underdeveloped countries, allowing it to sell all that is grown. Now, the consequence - American farmers are demanding more fertiliser and fearing a situation where fertiliser might not be available, they are stashing them away, triggering further scarcity and price hike. The data from the past decade suggests that the major fertiliser DAP witnessed about 320% increase in price while Urea's price increased by 160% in the underdeveloped countries, while the increase in the prices of these fertilisers in the developed countries has been 30-40%. So, why don’t the developed nations produce more to avert such disasterous situations? Because, the production capacity is tightly controlled and observed as emblematic of a free market. Demands go up and so do the prices. The investments in new plants are just enough to ensure high profits and definitely not enough to provide any reprieve to the underprivileged.

Direction: These questions are based on the information given below:

Does the “soft technology” of using organic waste as fertiliser still have any place? Not really, unless for a kitchen garden. Modern farming demands industrially produced chemicals. To gauge the productivity of food crops in any country, if the amount of fertiliser used is selected as an indicator, we can use kilograms per hectare for calculation and comparison of the fertiliser scenarios. With this measure in mind, the results show that the amount of fertiliser used in Germany is 300 times of that used in Bangladesh or that used in the North American countries is 20 times the fertiliser used in all of Africa. The law of diminishing returns says that, provided all the other factors are constant, when the investment in an area increases, the overall return increases only at a declining rate. Thus, an extra ton of fertiliser used in a developed country will only produce three extra tons, while a ton of fertiliser used in an area where no fertiliser has been used previously can produce ten extra tons of grain, which is the situation with most of the underdeveloped world. For instance, Scotland uses 400 kilograms per acre of Nitrogen-based fertilisers for wheat crops now as compared to 100 kilograms per acre three decades ago. However, the increase in the yield has only been from 110 to 150 kilograms per acre.

Another conspicuous truth is that the third world countries consume 15 per cent of the fertiliser used globally and only produce 10 per cent. The rest comes from imports; they are paying millions of dollars for fertilisers - there is an acute shortage. Kenya imports about 500,000 tons of fertiliser every year, which is just enough to produce 20 million bags of maize, but the country needs 34 million bags for consumption every year. Developed nations have a surplus of fertiliser, which is going to decline gradually. Asian countries are largely self-sufficient, but the small ones are the ones that suffer the most. What an irony that the third world countries do not have enough resources and yet are slammed for underproduction of food. Even from the bitty amounts of fertiliser available to the underdeveloped countries, a significant amount is directed towards cash crops and the small farmers who are primarily food producers have to go without it. To milk the situation for all it’s worth, the United States has removed all restrictions on the area of cropland put into production because it knows of the food situation in the underdeveloped countries, allowing it to sell all that is grown. Now, the consequence - American farmers are demanding more fertiliser and fearing a situation where fertiliser might not be available, they are stashing them away, triggering further scarcity and price hike. The data from the past decade suggests that the major fertiliser DAP witnessed about 320% increase in price while Urea's price increased by 160% in the underdeveloped countries, while the increase in the prices of these fertilisers in the developed countries has been 30-40%. So, why don’t the developed nations produce more to avert such disasterous situations? Because, the production capacity is tightly controlled and observed as emblematic of a free market. Demands go up and so do the prices. The investments in new plants are just enough to ensure high profits and definitely not enough to provide any reprieve to the underprivileged.

Direction: These questions are based on the information given below:

Does the “soft technology” of using organic waste as fertiliser still have any place? Not really, unless for a kitchen garden. Modern farming demands industrially produced chemicals. To gauge the productivity of food crops in any country, if the amount of fertiliser used is selected as an indicator, we can use kilograms per hectare for calculation and comparison of the fertiliser scenarios. With this measure in mind, the results show that the amount of fertiliser used in Germany is 300 times of that used in Bangladesh or that used in the North American countries is 20 times the fertiliser used in all of Africa. The law of diminishing returns says that, provided all the other factors are constant, when the investment in an area increases, the overall return increases only at a declining rate. Thus, an extra ton of fertiliser used in a developed country will only produce three extra tons, while a ton of fertiliser used in an area where no fertiliser has been used previously can produce ten extra tons of grain, which is the situation with most of the underdeveloped world. For instance, Scotland uses 400 kilograms per acre of Nitrogen-based fertilisers for wheat crops now as compared to 100 kilograms per acre three decades ago. However, the increase in the yield has only been from 110 to 150 kilograms per acre.

Another conspicuous truth is that the third world countries consume 15 per cent of the fertiliser used globally and only produce 10 per cent. The rest comes from imports; they are paying millions of dollars for fertilisers - there is an acute shortage. Kenya imports about 500,000 tons of fertiliser every year, which is just enough to produce 20 million bags of maize, but the country needs 34 million bags for consumption every year. Developed nations have a surplus of fertiliser, which is going to decline gradually. Asian countries are largely self-sufficient, but the small ones are the ones that suffer the most. What an irony that the third world countries do not have enough resources and yet are slammed for underproduction of food. Even from the bitty amounts of fertiliser available to the underdeveloped countries, a significant amount is directed towards cash crops and the small farmers who are primarily food producers have to go without it. To milk the situation for all it’s worth, the United States has removed all restrictions on the area of cropland put into production because it knows of the food situation in the underdeveloped countries, allowing it to sell all that is grown. Now, the consequence - American farmers are demanding more fertiliser and fearing a situation where fertiliser might not be available, they are stashing them away, triggering further scarcity and price hike. The data from the past decade suggests that the major fertiliser DAP witnessed about 320% increase in price while Urea's price increased by 160% in the underdeveloped countries, while the increase in the prices of these fertilisers in the developed countries has been 30-40%. So, why don’t the developed nations produce more to avert such disasterous situations? Because, the production capacity is tightly controlled and observed as emblematic of a free market. Demands go up and so do the prices. The investments in new plants are just enough to ensure high profits and definitely not enough to provide any reprieve to the underprivileged.

Direction: These questions are based on the information given below:

Does the “soft technology” of using organic waste as fertiliser still have any place? Not really, unless for a kitchen garden. Modern farming demands industrially produced chemicals. To gauge the productivity of food crops in any country, if the amount of fertiliser used is selected as an indicator, we can use kilograms per hectare for calculation and comparison of the fertiliser scenarios. With this measure in mind, the results show that the amount of fertiliser used in Germany is 300 times of that used in Bangladesh or that used in the North American countries is 20 times the fertiliser used in all of Africa. The law of diminishing returns says that, provided all the other factors are constant, when the investment in an area increases, the overall return increases only at a declining rate. Thus, an extra ton of fertiliser used in a developed country will only produce three extra tons, while a ton of fertiliser used in an area where no fertiliser has been used previously can produce ten extra tons of grain, which is the situation with most of the underdeveloped world. For instance, Scotland uses 400 kilograms per acre of Nitrogen-based fertilisers for wheat crops now as compared to 100 kilograms per acre three decades ago. However, the increase in the yield has only been from 110 to 150 kilograms per acre.

Another conspicuous truth is that the third world countries consume 15 per cent of the fertiliser used globally and only produce 10 per cent. The rest comes from imports; they are paying millions of dollars for fertilisers - there is an acute shortage. Kenya imports about 500,000 tons of fertiliser every year, which is just enough to produce 20 million bags of maize, but the country needs 34 million bags for consumption every year. Developed nations have a surplus of fertiliser, which is going to decline gradually. Asian countries are largely self-sufficient, but the small ones are the ones that suffer the most. What an irony that the third world countries do not have enough resources and yet are slammed for underproduction of food. Even from the bitty amounts of fertiliser available to the underdeveloped countries, a significant amount is directed towards cash crops and the small farmers who are primarily food producers have to go without it. To milk the situation for all it’s worth, the United States has removed all restrictions on the area of cropland put into production because it knows of the food situation in the underdeveloped countries, allowing it to sell all that is grown. Now, the consequence - American farmers are demanding more fertiliser and fearing a situation where fertiliser might not be available, they are stashing them away, triggering further scarcity and price hike. The data from the past decade suggests that the major fertiliser DAP witnessed about 320% increase in price while Urea's price increased by 160% in the underdeveloped countries, while the increase in the prices of these fertilisers in the developed countries has been 30-40%. So, why don’t the developed nations produce more to avert such disasterous situations? Because, the production capacity is tightly controlled and observed as emblematic of a free market. Demands go up and so do the prices. The investments in new plants are just enough to ensure high profits and definitely not enough to provide any reprieve to the underprivileged.