IIM Ahmedabad MBA-FABM selection Rural Society, Polity & Institutions: practice questions

Question 1 · medium

The latifundio-minifundio complex, often used to describe the historical agrarian structure of much of Latin America, refers to:

1. Owner-cultivator family farms of similar size created by post-war land reform in East Asia
2. State farms run by salaried workers under central plans after collectivisation of land
3. Very large estates coexisting with many tiny peasant plots that cannot support a family
4. Communal land allocated by lineage heads and chiefs without individual written title

Question 2 · hard

A development finance officer in western Kenya finds that most farmers have no individual title deeds, yet land is not 'unowned'. Which description fits the situation best?

1. Customary tenure: use rights allocated through lineage and local authority, coexisting with statutory title
2. Open access: no person or group holds any rights, so any newcomer may freely graze cattle or clear the land
3. State ownership: all untitled land is leased by the national government to occupants annually
4. Common property in Ostrom's sense, governed by an elected water users' association under statute

Question 3 · medium

A consumer goods firm treats rural and urban India as two separate markets with no links. Which idea from rural sociology most directly challenges this approach?

1. The rural-urban continuum, with flows of migrants, remittances, goods and media in both directions
2. Ghurye's features of caste, which show that occupational choice in villages is closed
3. The jajmani system, which shows that rural exchange takes place in kind rather than cash
4. Ostrom's design principles, which show that villages manage common resources well without any help from the state

Question 4 · medium

Compadrazgo, important in rural Latin America, is:

1. A rotating savings and credit association in which members take turns receiving the whole pot each month
2. An annual assembly of all adult members of a village that elects the local mayor
3. Ritual co-parenthood created at baptism or marriage that links families, frequently across wealth lines
4. A system of communal landholding under Article 27 of the 1917 Mexican Constitution

Question 5 · hard

A microfinance promoter forms groups of 12 to 15 women from the same hamlet who meet weekly and know each other's households. Which sociological reasoning explains why such groups can lend without collateral?

1. They behave like primary groups, so members' mutual knowledge and peer pressure replace collateral
2. They are secondary groups governed by written contracts that courts can enforce cheaply
3. They are reference groups for rich farmers, who guarantee the loans of members to protect their own social status in the village
4. They are out-groups to the bank, so members avoid default to protect the bank's reputation

Question 6 · hard

In a district, men increasingly migrate to construction work, and women now do most of the transplanting, weeding and livestock care on family land that remains in the men's names. A researcher should describe this as:

1. Deagrarianisation, because the household has left farming altogether for non-farm employment
2. Feminisation of agriculture, which may raise women's workload without raising their control over land and income
3. Sanskritisation, because families often withdraw women from visible farm work to claim higher status
4. Women's empowerment, because women's share of farm work has risen and so has their decision-making power over land

Question 7 · hard

A dairy project selects the 'leaders' it will work with by listing the sarpanch, the cooperative chairman and the school headmaster. What is the main risk of relying only on this positional method?

1. It always selects too many leaders, because every adult in a village holds some formal position
2. It is illegal under the 73rd Amendment, which requires the gram sabha to name all project leaders
3. It is too expensive, because each villager must be interviewed separately and the choices mapped in a sociogram by trained staff
4. It misses informal leaders, such as respected women or experienced livestock keepers, who actually influence decisions

Question 8 · medium

Patron-client relations in rural societies are best described as:

1. Durable, unequal exchanges in which a patron gives land, credit or protection and a client gives labour, loyalty or votes
2. Legal agreements between a commercial bank and a farm borrower, secured by a registered mortgage on agricultural land and buildings
3. Short-term market contracts between equals for the sale of labour at the prevailing wage
4. Relations among members of a cooperative who have equal votes regardless of capital

Question 9 · hard

A team wants to know which local institutions villagers trust most and find most accessible before choosing a partner for a credit programme. Which PRA tool is designed for this?

1. Venn diagram
2. Resource map
3. Daily activity schedule
4. Transect walk

Question 10 · medium

A crop matrix scores three crops on income (weight 3), risk (weight 2) and labour demand (weight 1), each on a 1-5 scale where higher is better. Crop A scores 4, 2, 3; crop B scores 3, 5, 2; crop C scores 5, 1, 1. Which crop ranks first on the weighted score?

1. Crop C, with 18
2. Crop A, with 19
3. Crop B, with 10
4. Crop B, with 21