Issues in Rural Economic and Social Development Statistics

Transcription

1 SYLLABUS FOR JRF ENTRANCE EXAM SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH UNIT 2012 Issues in Rural Economic and Social Development 1. Data base of the Indian Economy 2. Problems of social and economic development (including concept of human development), with special reference to rural India 3. Land reform and agrarian change 4. Rural labour 5. Anti-poverty programmes and their evaluation (including employment programmes and food security programmes) 6. Caste and discrimination 7. Gender-related issues 8. Qualitative research methods Suggested Readings: Ruddar Dutt and K.P.M Sundharam, The Indian Economy, latest edition, selected chapters (Part I, chapters 4-6, Part II, chapters 22-27, Part III, all chapters, Part IV, chapters 43-45, and Part V, chapter 48). Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity (1999) and India, Development and Participation (2002), Oxford University Press. UNDP, Human Development Report 1990, and recent years. A. R. Desai, Rural Sociology in India, Popular Prakashan, latest edition. Bina Agarwal, A Field of One s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (1994), Cambridge University Press. Myron Weiner, The Child and the State in India (1991). Sukhdeo Thorat, Dalits in India, Sage (2009). Relevant articles from Economic and Political Weekly and Social Scientist (including on NREGA and PDS). Alan Bryman, 2004, Social Research Methods, Oxford University Press. David Silvermann, 2006, Interpreting Qualitative Data. Statistics 1. Descriptive statistics 2. Standard distributions and their properties. 3. Statistical inference (estimation and testing) 4. Design of experiments and sample surveys Note: Candidates are expected to know the main steps involved in calculation but not necessarily all the derivations. Readings A. M. Gun, M. K. Gupta and Dasgupta, Fundamentals of Statistics, volumes 1 and 2, relevant chapters A. M. Gun, M. K. Gupta and Dasgupta, Basic Statistics, relevant chapters Optional: G. W Snedecor and W. G. Cochran, Statistical Methods

2 2012 SAMPLE Forenoon BOOKLET No. TEST CODE: RXI Questions: 20 Time: 2 hours On the answer-booklet write your Name, Registration Number, Test Code Number of this Booklet, etc. in the appropriate places. ALL ROUGH WORK MUST BE DONE ON THIS BOOKLET AND/OR ON THE ANSWER-BOOKLET. STOP! WAIT FOR THE SIGNAL TO START 1

3 Paper I Objective questions: 2 hours Write down the letter of the correct answer(s) in the OMR sheet 30 questions and 3 marks each (Total of 90 marks). 1. The official head count ratio of rural poverty is (a) 17 per cent (b) 27 per cent (c) 37 per cent (d) 77 per cent 2. The Bombay Plan is (a) A plan for industry drawn up by the Tata industrial house (b) A subsection of the Five Year Plans relating to urban development (c) A programme for planned development in India published in (d) A plan for slum clearance first developed in Mumbai 3. Which of the following are the defining features of a dominant caste (a) Numerical strength (b) Highest ritual status (c) High economic status (d) All of the above 4. Poverty and Un-British Rule in India was written by: (a) Jawaharlal Nehru (b) Lord Desai (c) Dadabhai Naoroji (d) Amartya Sen 5. The food subsidy bill of the Government of India for was around (a) R 12,000 crores (b) Rs 60,000 crores (c) Rs 5 crores (d) Zero 2

4 6. In 2001, among the following, the State with the highest Human Development Index was (a) Maharashtra (b) West Bengal (c) Kerala (d) Uttar Pradesh 7. In order to study production conditions among households in a village, I took a list of all households (the ), and divided it into different landholding groups (the ), and studied every fifth household in each group (the ). Which group of statistical terms best fills these gaps? (a) census, size-classes, focus group (b) population, classes, rapid appraisal (c) population, strata, stratified sample (d) voters list, focus groups, parameter. 8. In a population, 30 per cent are rich, and 30 per cent read a particular newspaper. Suppose 20 per cent of rich people read that newspaper. The percentage who are neither rich nor read that newspaper is (a) 40 per cent (b) 46 per cent (c) 60 per cent (d) 70 per cent 9. The mean absolute deviation is least when taken from the (a) Arithmetic mean (b) Geometric mean (c) Median (d) Mode 3

5 10. The mean monthly income of a person is Rs 11,219 and his mean monthly expenditure come out to be Rs 7,150. His mean monthly savings are (a) Rs 18,369 (b) Rs 7,150 (c) Rs 4,069 (d) Negative 11. Given the following results for the heights (y) and weights (x) of 1000 men students: y (mean) = inches, x = lbs, s y = 2.50 inches, s x = lbs and r=0.60. Treating height as the dependent variable, we fit a linear regression to this data. Denote by y i hat the fitted value of y i. The variance of (y i y i hat) equals (a) (b) (c) ( ) (d) ( ). 12. Let V 1 = ( )/ 4 - {( )/4} 2 V 2 = ( )/ 4 - {( )/4} 2 V 3 = ( )/ 4 - {( )/4} 2 Then (a) V 1 < V 2 < V 3 (b) V 3 < V 2 < V 1 (c) V 3 < V 1 < V 2 (d) V 2 < V 3 < V 1 4

6 2012 SAMPLE QUESTIONS Afternoon BOOKLET No. TEST CODE: RXII Questions: 5 Time: 2 hours On the answer-booklet write your Name, Registration Number, Test Code Number of this Booklet, etc. in the appropriate places. ALL ROUGH WORK MUST BE DONE ON THIS BOOKLET AND/OR ON THE ANSWER-BOOKLET. STOP! WAIT FOR THE SIGNAL TO START 1

7 Paper II Descriptive or essay type questions Answer five of the following questions (at least one of the last two statistical questions must be answered) in not more than 350 words each. Each answer carries a maximum of 20 marks. 1. Define chronic unemployment. How is it measured? Why is it low in rural India? 2. India has a high rate of economic growth. How then do you explain its low ranking on the Human Development Index? 3. Discuss the relationship between economic structure and caste hierarchy in understanding rural India. 4. What are the main constraints to increase agricultural productivity? 5. In what way has the WTO Agreement on Agriculture affected Indian agriculture? Give a few examples. 6. Discuss the role of village studies in study of rural economy and society. 7. The mean yield per plant for 11 tomato plants of a particular variety was found to be 1, gm with a standard deviation of gm. Find 99 % confidence limits to the mean yield of all plants of this variety. (The p-th quantile, with p = 0.995, of t-distribution with 10 degrees of freedom, equals ) 8. The expenditure of 1000 families is given as under. The mean and median for the distribution are both Rs Calculate the missing frequencies. Expenditure (in Rs) Number of families ? ?