Educator and Tagging Information
Learning Area:
Social Sciences
Resource Name:
Urbanisation
Assessment Exemplar Number:
SSG8.6
Item/s:
16
Phase:
Senior Phase
Grade:
8
Tags:
Settlement patterns, rural-urban migration, push and pull factors, poverty, urbanisation,
sustainable living, Summative Assessment
Assessment Type:
Summative
Assessment Form/s:
Formal assessment
Copyright for included material:
DS Gear, M Colyn, C Mulder – permission granted for duration of this project
Duration:
90 minutes
Learning Outcome(s) and Assessment Standard(s):
Learning Outcome1: The learner will be able to use enquiry skills to investigate geographical
and environmental concepts and processes.
Assessment Standards
We know this when the learner:
■ Identifies and selects a variety of geographical and environmental sources relevant to an
enquiry (uses fieldwork and other enquiry methods) [finds sources].
■ Interprets maps and atlas information, graphical and statistical sources [works with
sources].
■ Identifies some physical and constructed features from aerial and/or orthophoto maps of
local and other areas [works with sources].
■ Presents an original idea as part of an answer to the questions posed in the enquiry
[answers the question].
■ Reports on the knowledge gained in the enquiry by constructing an argument based on
sources of information, in a variety of ways; uses maps, diagrams and graphics; where
possible uses computers in the presentation [communicates the answer].
Learning Outcome 2: The learner will be able to demonstrate geographical and
environmental knowledge and understanding.
Assessment Standards
We know this when the learner:
■ Identifies and compares different types of settlement patterns [people and places].
■ Identifies factors that influence the formation of settlement patterns (natural, economic,
social/ political) [people and resources]
■ Identifies critical factors that have led to changes in settlement patterns in South Africa,
Africa and elsewhere [people and the environment].
Learning Outcome 3: The learner will be able to make informed decisions about social and
environmental issues and problems.
Assessment Standards
We know this when the learner:
■ Identifies challenges to societies and settlements associated with the use and abuse of
people and natural resources [identifies the issue].
■ Examines the unequal distribution of, and access to, resources in different contexts [factors
affecting the issue].
■ Investigates possible ways of reducing resource consumption [makes choices].
■ Makes suggestions to guide sustainable living practices in a particular context [makes
choices].
Learning Space:
Assessment
Hyperlinks:
To be completed later.
Number of questions for exemplar:
16
Rating:
Easy questions:
1, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14
Medium questions:
2, 3, 4, 11, 15
Difficult questions:
5, 8, 16
Assessment Task
Settlement
A B
C D
E F
1. Choose an appropriate label for each one from the following list. You may not
use a word twice. [6]
circular; urban; nucleated; linear; dispersed; rural
2. What are the advantages of living in 2.1 a dispersed settlement?
2.2 a nucleated settlement? [6]
3. Why are some settlements linear? Refer to the photographs to support your
answer. [4]
4. Refer to photographs B and F. Write a brief description of how life differs living
in these two settlements. [5]
5. Which settlement, B, C or F, makes the most sustainable use of its resources?
Justify your answer by pointing out information that you can see in the
photographs. [10]
6. Choose the correct definition for A, B, C and D: [4]
6.1. The increase in the number of people
6.2 The decline in the number of people living in the country areas
6.3 A very large city
6.4 The change from rural living to urban living
A Rural depopulation
B urbanisation
C megalopolis
D population growth
7. Study the two graphs in Figures 1 and 2.
Global urbanisation % through time Urbanisation % Selected Regions
60 80
70
50
60
40
% Urbanisation
50
% Urbanised
30 40
Fig 1 shows you how the number of people living in urban centres throughout the world
20
30
increased
20
10
10
0
1800 1850 1900 1950 1980 1990
since
2000
0
Europe South Russia North Asia Oceania Africa
Year
1800. America America
Fig 2 shows you how much the world’s population has become urbanized in each
continent.
Answer the following:
7.1 Which continent is the most urbanised? [1]
7.2 Which continent is the least urbanised? [1]
7.3 Explain the reason for the above situation. [4]
8. Why do you think such a large percentage of the world’s population became
urbanised between 1850 and 1950? [4]
9. Study the illustration below.
9.1 Give
this
picture
a title.
[2]
9.2 Write a caption for each of the characters at A, B and C in the picture. [3]
10. What factors in the village caused A to leave? [6]
11. Write a description of what happens to person A when he arrives in the city. [6]
12. Many people are attracted to cities from rural areas. List four PULL factors. [8]
13. The movement away from rural areas results in rural depopulation. Refer to the
diagram below.
D B
13.1 A – Which population group leaves the rural areas? [2]
13.2 B – Who remains to work in the rural areas? [2]
13.3 C – How does this impact on the work done in rural areas? [2]
14. D – What effect does this movement away from the rural area have on the people
left behind? [6]
15. What can be done to lessen the problems of people in depopulated rural areas? [8]
16. Rapid urbanisation results in the growth of informal settlements and shack towns.
Compare the problems of living in poor rural areas with living in an urban shack
settlement. [10]
[Total: 100 marks]
Suggested Solutions
1. A) Linear; B) Nucleated; C) Dispersed / Rural; D) Urban; E) Circular; F) Rural
2.1 Control over your own land. Privacy. Not far to walk to your fields.
2.2 Security; access to a single water point; sense of community
3. In A, it is linear along a road. Other features that might cause linear settlements include
rivers and coasts. Sometimes linear settlements develop along a bottom of a slope
(Photo F) or along the top of a ridge.
4. In Photo B, the people are living in a commercial farming environment in a first-world
country. In photo B it is in a third-world country.
A will have tap water, electricity and good transport routes. In B you probably have to
walk to fetch water from a river or spring. There is no electricity and very poor transport.
5. B probably uses a lot of electricity as well as chemicals on the farms. C is a subsistence
area where each farmer appears to have sufficient land for him or herself. This is
sustainable. Photo F appears to be over-using the land, farming crops on very steep
slopes, which suggests that the area is over-populated. Any other good points.
6. 6.1 D
6.2 A
6.3 C
6.4 B
7. 7.1 Europe
7.2 Africa
7.3 Most people in Europe are employed in service industries. Most people in Africa
are employed in farming. Commercial farming in Europe employs very few
people.
8. The expansion of large-scale commercial farming reduced the number of farmers and
farm labourers that were needed, creating unemployment in rural areas, so many people
moved to the cities to find work. Better paid work in the factories of the industrial
revolution promised a better life.
9.1 Anything that highlights the fact that A is leaving the rural area. Anything to do with rural-
urban migration.
9.2 A is leaving the rural area (anything that conveys this message).
B is a farmer (he has a hoe). Anything that conveys that message. He may be telling A
to go to the city, there is no job here.
C has got nothing to do. He is bored.
10. Poor/hard living conditions, lack of money; loss of rural jobs; the need to earn money to
make ends meet.
11. Often ends up living in a shack settlement. Rural skills not adequate for urban job. Ends
up earning very little as a labourer/piece worker. Subject to crime and disease.
12. Better paid jobs; more jobs; more exciting lifestyle; better education and health facilities.
Any other sensible pull factor.
13. 13.1 Mostly young men or young adults in general.
13.2 The old and the young, mostly female.
13.3 Work requiring strong young people, especially men, gets neglected.
14. The people left behind often suffer from malnutrition; breakdown of social structures – no
man in the house. Children are looked after by grandparents, who are not always able to
control the older children.
15. This is an open-ended question. Any sensible suggestion(s) supported by a good
argument.
16. Poor rural areas are generally peaceful and relatively safe in terms of crime. Rural areas
may struggle to find sufficient food, especially in times of drought. They are dependent
on river water, which in a rural area is probably reasonably clean. In urban shack
settlements, there is often no good clean water and sewerage is poor, resulting in
disease. Conditions are overcrowded and there is a lack of privacy and often a high
crime rate. Both societies will experience a breakdown of social structures.
