2012 J2 H1 Prelim Exam Question Paper

JURONG JUNIOR COLLEGE PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS 2012 8819/01 ECONOMICS Higher 1 30 August 2012 3 hours READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST Write your name and class on all the work you hand in. Write in dark blue or black pen on both sides of the paper. You may use a soft pencil for any diagrams, graphs or rough working. Do not use staples, paper clips, highlighters, glue or correction fluid. Section A Answer all questions. Section B Answer one question. At the end of the examination, fasten all your work securely together. The number of marks is given in brackets [ ] at the end of each question or part question. JJC Economics This document consists of 8 printed pages. [Turn over

© Jurong Junior College 2012 (H1) 2 Section A Answer all questions. Question 1 Metal Minerals Extract 1: Consumerism drive demand for metals Rising consumerism in affluent cities especially in the deve loping economies of China, India, and Vietnam has spurred an increase in consumption of consume r products such as electronics and smartphones over the years. The final end user, the consumer has caused thousands of tons of materials such as metals and rare earth metals to be extracted from the ground to feed the needs of industries. Also electromagnets made from rare earth metals such as Beryllium, Cobalt and Fluorspar are used in everything from the motors that power hybrid vehicles and electric windows to windmills, computers and hundreds of consumer goods that touch our lives every day. Despite the strong demand for metals, world’s supply cannot expand fast enough to keep up with the demand. When orders increase, new supply takes up to a year to be adeq uate and when orders decline producers a re unwilling to shut production down. It’s not like mining companies can just flip a switch; it takes time to make mine sites suitable for extracting metal. Production remains constrained and there's been an underinv estment in extraction technology and capacity. Thankfully the global economic downturn has eased the pressure on these commodities and allowed production output to catch up with the orders. This gave governments some breathing space and time to bring infla tion down briefly for their economies. Source: Popular Science New Technology, Oct 2011 and Canadian press, May 2011 Figure 1 Source: www.kitco.com

3 © Jurong Junior College 2012 (H1) [Turn over Extract 2: Chinese embargo of rare earth metals Extraction and mining activities and production are often associated with severe environmental damage. The environmental problems include air emissions with harmful elements, such as fluorine and sulphur, wastewater that contains excessive acid and radioactive materials too. Although China only has 30% of g