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ASRB NET and ARS / SMS / STO recruitment Farm Management: practice questions

ASRB NET and ARS / SMS / STO recruitment · India · Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ICAR)

Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papers
10worked here, free
20written to this exam in this subject
13syllabus units

About ASRB NET and ARS / SMS / STO recruitment

ASRB NET and ARS / SMS / STO recruitment is a professional certification run by Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ICAR), for candidates in India. NET: one paper of 150 objective questions at 1 mark each, 2 hours, -1/3 negative, online, English or Hindi, Master's level. ARS: qualifying prelims, then mains 240 and interview 60.

Official site: pw.live.

We have not been able to confirm these details against the exam body's own specification, so fees, dates and pass marks are left out on purpose. Check the current format, eligibility, fees and dates on the official site.

Farm Management in ASRB NET and ARS / SMS / STO recruitment

Making the best use of land, labour, capital and machinery on a farm: measuring efficiency, costing, planning and budgeting, and keeping records.

Our 20 ASRB NET and ARS / SMS / STO recruitment questions in this subject: 3 easy, 7 medium, 10 hard, across 13 units.

10 practice questions, worked

Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.

These 10 were written to ASRB NET and ARS / SMS / STO recruitment and are not shown on any other exam's page.

Question 1 · hard

The yield response of wheat to nitrogen is Y = 2000 + 30N − 0.1N² (Y in kg/ha, N in kg/ha). Nitrogen costs 18 currency units per kg and wheat sells at 20 per kg. What is the economic optimum dose of nitrogen?

  1. 291 kg/ha
  2. 150 kg/ha
  3. 144.4 kg/ha
  4. 145.5 kg/ha
Answer and working

D. 145.5 kg/ha

Set MPP = dY/dN = 30 − 0.2N equal to the price ratio Pn/Py = 18/20 = 0.9. So 0.2N = 30 − 0.9 = 29.1, N = 145.5 kg/ha. 150 kg/ha is the technical optimum (MPP = 0), which ignores the cost of nitrogen; 144.4 comes from inverting the price ratio (Py/Pn). 291 kg/ha drops the 2 from the derivative (29.1/0.1).

Question 2 · medium

A Cobb-Douglas production function for a crop has input elasticities of 0.45 (land), 0.3 (labour) and 0.15 (fertiliser). The function shows

  1. constant returns to scale, since every elasticity is below 1
  2. increasing returns to scale, since each elasticity is positive
  3. diminishing marginal returns to scale for labour only
  4. decreasing returns to scale, since the elasticities sum to 0.90
Answer and working

D. decreasing returns to scale, since the elasticities sum to 0.90

In a Cobb-Douglas function the sum of the output elasticities measures returns to scale: 0.45 + 0.3 + 0.15 = 0.90 < 1, so a proportional increase in all inputs raises output less than proportionately. Individual elasticities below 1 show diminishing returns to each input, which is a different concept.

Question 3 · easy

Net returns (thousand currency units per ha) for three crops in good, normal and poor seasons are — Paddy: 120, 70, 20; Maize: 100, 65, 40; Pulses: 60, 50, 45. Probabilities are unknown. Which crop does the maximin (Wald) criterion select?

  1. Paddy
  2. Pulses
  3. Maize
  4. Paddy and maize equally
Answer and working

B. Pulses

Maximin takes each crop's worst outcome — paddy 20, maize 40, pulses 45 — and picks the best of these: pulses (45). Paddy has the best single outcome, which is what maximax would pick.

Question 4 · medium

Beyond the net money change, a well-prepared partial budget should also record

  1. the farm's total net worth
  2. non-monetary effects such as extra risk, labour peaks and fit with the rotation
  3. the full whole-farm cash flow for the year, month by month, with opening and closing balances
  4. the gross margins of every enterprise on the farm, including those unaffected
Answer and working

B. non-monetary effects such as extra risk, labour peaks and fit with the rotation

A partial budget answers one question with the items that change, then notes considerations it cannot price: risk, timing of labour, rotation effects, skills needed and family preferences. Net worth, whole-farm cash flow and all enterprise margins belong to balance sheets and whole-farm budgets.

Question 5 · medium

The main purpose of a monthly cash flow budget in whole-farm planning is to show

  1. the profitability of each enterprise
  2. the depreciation charged on machinery
  3. when the farm will need to borrow and when it will repay
  4. the farm's net worth at the end of the year after depreciation
Answer and working

C. when the farm will need to borrow and when it will repay

A cash flow budget spreads expected receipts and payments over months, revealing cash deficits (when a loan is needed) and surpluses (when it can be repaid). Net worth comes from the balance sheet, enterprise profitability from enterprise budgets, and depreciation is a non-cash cost that does not appear in cash flow.

Question 6 · easy

Which of the following is NOT an assumption of linear programming?

  1. Divisibility of activities and resources
  2. Known, single-valued coefficients
  3. Additivity of resource use across activities
  4. Increasing returns to scale in each activity
Answer and working

D. Increasing returns to scale in each activity

LP assumes linearity (proportionality), which rules out increasing or decreasing returns to scale; additivity; divisibility; finiteness; and certainty of coefficients. Increasing returns would make the objective or constraints non-linear.

Question 7 · hard

In the programme 'maximise 25000X1 + 15000X2 subject to X1 + X2 ≤ 8 (land, ha) and 30X1 + 10X2 ≤ 180 (labour, days)', both constraints bind at the optimum. The shadow prices of land and labour are

  1. 500 currency units per ha and 10,000 per labour day
  2. 15,000 currency units per ha and 1,500 per labour day
  3. 25,000 currency units per ha and 833 per labour day
  4. 10,000 currency units per ha and 500 per labour day
Answer and working

D. 10,000 currency units per ha and 500 per labour day

For activities in the basis, imputed resource cost equals gross margin: y1 + 30y2 = 25000 and y1 + 10y2 = 15000. Subtracting, 20y2 = 10000, y2 = 500; y1 = 15000 − 10×500 = 10,000. Check: 8×10000 + 180×500 = 170,000 = primal Z. Gross margin per hectare or per labour day of one crop is not a shadow price.

Question 8 · easy

The simplex method of solving linear programmes was developed by

  1. Earl Heady
  2. Michael Farrell
  3. Harry Markowitz
  4. George Dantzig
Answer and working

D. George Dantzig

Dantzig developed the simplex method in 1947. Heady (with Candler) applied LP to farm planning; Markowitz developed mean-variance portfolio theory; Farrell (1957) proposed the decomposition of productive efficiency.

Question 9 · medium

A lender asks a farmer for records. Which of these is the most useful single record for judging whether a term loan can be repaid on schedule?

  1. The farm map
  2. A cash flow statement showing the timing of receipts and payments
  3. The inventory of hand tools
  4. A livestock breeding record with calving dates for every animal on the farm
Answer and working

B. A cash flow statement showing the timing of receipts and payments

Repayment depends on when cash is available. A cash flow statement (or budget) shows surpluses and deficits by month or season, so instalments can be matched to harvest sales. The other records are useful for production planning but say little about repayment timing.

Question 10 · hard

A new high-yielding short-duration rice variety raises grain yield on station but farmers in a mixed crop-livestock area adopt it slowly. The best farming-systems explanation is that

  1. on-station trials always overstate yields by a fixed margin, so farmers discount the reported gain accordingly
  2. farmers do not understand yield differences
  3. its lower straw yield or quality cuts fodder for the farmers' livestock, so whole-farm returns need not rise
  4. short-duration varieties are banned in mixed-farming areas
Answer and working

C. its lower straw yield or quality cuts fodder for the farmers' livestock, so whole-farm returns need not rise

In a mixed system straw is fodder, so a variety chosen on grain yield alone can lower whole-farm returns once the livestock subsystem is counted. Diagnosis in FSR is meant to catch such interactions before technology is designed. The other options are unfounded generalisations.

A study plan for Farm Management in ASRB NET and ARS / SMS / STO recruitment

This plan follows where our questions actually fall, so the time goes where the marks are likely to be. It is our reading of the syllabus, not the exam body's weighting.

  1. First, the heavy units (60% of the 20 questions): Linear programming in farm planning (4, 20%); Cost concepts in farm management (2, 10%); Decision-making under certainty, risk and uncertainty (2, 10%); Partial budgeting (2, 10%); Whole-farm planning and budgeting (2, 10%).

    Read the manual chapters for these first and do every worked question you can find on them.

  2. Then the middle band: Definition and scope of farm management (1, 5%); Enterprise budgeting (1, 5%); Farm cost accounting (1, 5%); Farm records and accounts (1, 5%); Farming systems and the systems approach (1, 5%).

    Aim for one sitting per unit, then mixed questions across them.

  3. Then the lighter units: Management of land, labour, capital and machinery (1, 5%); Measures of farm efficiency (1, 5%); Valuation of farm assets and liabilities (1, 5%).

    Learn the definitions, classifications and standard numbers; these units are more often recalled than worked.

  4. Leave time for the hard ones: Definition and scope of farm management (1 hard of 1), Enterprise budgeting (1 hard of 1), Farm cost accounting (1 hard of 1).

    Come back to these after a first pass, untimed, and read every explanation, including for the options you rejected.

  5. Bank the easy marks: Linear programming in farm planning (2 easy of 4); Decision-making under certainty, risk and uncertainty (1 easy of 2).

    Do these early in revision so they are fast on the day.

  6. Finish timed. Sit the subject as a timed set without notes, mark it, and send each wrong answer back to its unit above.

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