What is Case Study Question / Paragraph Based Question?
A case study is a scenario in a particular academic / professional context which students are expected to analyse and respond to, guided by specific questions posed concerning the situation. In many cases, the scenario or case study involves a number of issues or problems that must be dealt with in a academic / professional workplace.
Why Case Study Questions are included in academics?
Case study assignments usually require students to identify problems and issues in a scenario, to demonstrate their developing knowledge of theories and academic / professional policies and to make decisions and recommendations based on these to either prevent or solve some of the issues in that scenario.
How to solve Case Study Questions?
There are several steps to writing an answer to a case study assignment:
STEP 1: Read the case study and questions carefully.
- Read the case and associated questions carefully.
- Highlight the main points of the case and any issues that you can identify.
- Read the questions closely and analyse what they are requiring you to do.
- Read the case again, linking the information that is relevant to each question you have been asked.
STEP 2: Identify the issues in the case study.
Case studies describe a situation which may arise in a particular profession or social context. They often involve a number of people in a complex situation. They will often describe a situation which is problematic, possibly in how it is dealt with, or in its complexity. An important part of your answer is to analyse the situation and to identify the issues/actions described in the case which may be problematic. The following questions may help you to do this:
- What actions were taken in the case?
- Were these actions the most appropriate and why?
- Were there any consequences of the actions taken?
- Was anything omitted or not considered?
- Were actions/procedures in line with existing codes of practice, policy or theories?
STEP 3: Link theory to practice.
Use your knowledge of existing codes of practice, theories and/or other academic / professional documents and behaviours to decide what was done appropriately and what was not.
STEP 4: Plan your answer.
It can be useful to use the questions you have been set as headings and to answer each part in turn, reducing the chance of omitting set questions. You can always take out the headings before you submit if you wish. Lecturers usually set questions in a logical order, so answer in the order they are written in your question.
STEP 5: Start writing your case study answer (for theory only)
Like any assignment, you will need an introduction, body sections in which you answer the questions put to you regarding the case study, and a conclusion.
STEP 6: Edit and proofread.
Read through your paper yourself to detect and correct other errors and omissions.
Check you have answered all questions and backed up your answer with relevant passage.
Types of Case Study Questions / Paragraph Based Questions
Case Study Questions / Paragraph Based Questions can be broadly classified into two types:
- MCQs type: In this type, student has to tick the correct option from various options.
- Theory type: In this type, student has to write proper solution / answer in cotext to the case study.
Case Study/ Passage Based Questions Chapter 4 The Age of Industrialisation
Type 1: MCQ type
Case Study Question 01
Read the text given below and answer the questions that follow:
As loans flowed in and the demand for fine textiles expanded, weavers eagerly took the advances, hoping to earn more. Many weavers had small plots of land which they had earlier cultivated along with weaving, and the produce from this took care of their family needs. Now they had to lease out the land and devote all their time to weaving. Weaving, in fact, required the labour of the entire family, with children and women all engaged in different stages of the process. Soon, however, in many weaving villages there were reports of clashes between weavers and gomasthas. Earlier supply merchants had very often lived within the weaving villages, and had a close relationship with the weavers, looking after their needs and helping them in times of crisis. The new gomasthas were outsiders, with no long-term social link with the village. They acted arrogantly, marched into villages with sepoys and peons, and punished weavers for delays in supply– often beating and flogging them. The weavers lost the space to bargain for prices and sell to different buyers: the price they received from the Company was miserably low and the loans they had accepted tied them to the company.
Answer the following MCQs by choosing the most appropriate option:
Question.1. Which of the following work was not performed by Gomasthas?
(a) To supervise weavers
(b) Collect supplies
(c) Examine the quality of the clothes.
(d) To provide loans to weavers to expand their business.
Question.2. At the starting, which was the main problem faced by Company here in India?
(a) Competition with other European countries
(b) High cost of raw material.
(c) Irregular supplies of cotton and silk.
(d) All of the above.
Question.3. Find out the incorrect statement about the Indian weavers:
(a) Before colonial government weavers were having enough to sustain their family.
(b) Gomasthas made their life easy by providing loans on easy conditions.
(c) Once weavers took loans they were in debt trap.
(d) To repay loans they started work involving their family members.
Question.4. Find out the correct statement from the following:
(a) After arrival of Britishers Bombay and Calcutta lost their glory.
(b) Gomasthas played important role to establish trade monopoly of East India Company.
(c) To live a luxurious life weavers started work hard with family members.
(d) Gomasthas were paid servants to supervise weavers, collect supplies and examine the quality of cloth.
Ans.1. (d) To provide loans to weavers to expand their business.
Ans.2. (d) All of the above.
Ans.3. (b) Gomasthas made their life easy by providing loans on easy conditions.
Ans.4. (d) Gomasthas were paid servants to supervise weavers, collect supplies and examine the quality of cloth.
Case Study Question 02
Read the source given below and answer the questions that follow:
The history of many business groups goes back to trade with China. From the late eighteenth century, as you have read in your book last year, the British in India began exporting opium to China and took tea from China to England. Many Indians became junior players in this trade, providing finance, procuring supplies, and shipping consignments. Having earned through trade, some of these businessmen had visions of developing industrial enterprises in India. In Bengal, Dwarkanath Tagore made his fortune in the China trade before he turned to industrial investment, setting up six jointstock companies in the 1830s and 1840s. Tagore’s enterprises sank along with those of others in the wider business crises of the 1840s, but later in the nineteenth century many of the China traders became successful industrialists. In Bombay, Parsis like Dinshaw Petit and Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata who built huge industrial empires in India, accumulated their initial wealth partly from exports to China, and partly from raw cotton shipments to England. Seth Hukumchand, a Marwari businessman who set up the first Indian jute mill in Calcutta in 1917, also traded with China. So did the father as well as grandfather of the famous industrialist G.D. Birla.
Answer the following MCQs by choosing the most appropriate option:
Question.1. The first cotton mill came up in India in:
(a) Poona in 1854
(b) Bombay in 1854
(c) Ahmedabad in 1854
(d) Calcutta in 1854
Question.2. Which of the following was not a popular destination of Indian industrialists in 19th century?
(a) China
(b) Burma
(c) Middle east and East Africa
(d) Central European Countries
Question.3. Find out the incorrect statement from the following:
(a) Large part of opium produced in India sent to China not to Europe.
(b) Main purpose of opium trade was to acquire tea to sell in European market.
(c) Opium trade helped to develop industries in India.
(d) Indians were the major players in trade with China as compare to European traders.
Question.4. Find out the correct statement from the following:
(a) Colonial government encouraged Indians to sell opium in China and Chinese tea in Europe.
(b) Colonial government encouraged Indians to sell manufactured goods in Europe.
(c) Colonial government encouraged Indians to sell raw material and food grains in Europe.
(d) Opium was having huge demand in China for medicinal purpose and produced by India.
Ans.1. (b) Bombay in 1854
Ans.2. (d) Central European Countries
Ans.3. (d) Indians were the major players in trade with China as compare to European traders.
Ans.4. (c) Colonial government encouraged Indians to sell raw material and food grains in Europe.
Type 2: Theory Type
Case Study Question 03
Read the source given below and answer the question that follows:
The earliest factories in England came up by the 1730s. But it was only in the late eighteenth century that the number of factories multiplied. The first symbol of the new era was cotton. Its production boomed in the late nineteenth century. In 1760 Britain was importing 2.5 million pounds of raw cotton to feed its cotton industry. By 1787 this import soared to 22 million pounds. This increase was linked to a number of changes within the process of production.
Let us look briefly at some of these. A series of inventions in the eighteenth century increased the efficacy of each step of the production process (carding, twisting and spinning, and rolling). They enhanced the output per worker, enabling each worker to produce more, and they made the production of stronger threads and yarn possible. Then Richard Arkwright created the cotton mill. Till this time, as you have seen, cloth production was spread all over the countryside and carried out within village households. But now, the costly new machines could be purchased, set up and maintained in the mill. Within the mill all the processes were brought together under one roof and management. This allowed a more careful supervision over the production process, a watch over quality, and the regulation of labour, all of which had been difficult to do when production was in the countryside.
In the early nineteenth century, factories increasingly became an intimate part of the English landscape. So visible were the imposing new mills, so magical seemed to be the power of new technology, that contemporaries were dazzled. They concentrated their attention on the mills, almost forgetting the by lanes and the workshops where production still continued.
Question.1. When was the earliest factories in England came up? What was the symbol of new era?
Question.2. Who created the first cotton mill in England?
Question.3. What will happen after the advent of industrialisation?
Ans.1.
(i) The earliest factories in England came up by the 1730s.
(ii) The first symbol of new era was cotton.
Ans.2. Richard Arkwright was created the first cotton mill in England.
Ans.3.
(i) Industrialisation enhanced the output per worker, enabling each worker to produce more.
(ii) They made the production of stronger threads and yarn possible.
Case Study Question 04
Read the source given below and answer the question that follows:
Source A-Situation before the Industrial Revolution
Even before factories began to dot the landscape in England and Europe, there was large-scale industrial production for an international market. This was not based on factories. Many historians now refer to this phase of industrialisation as proto industrialisation. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, merchants from the towns in Europe began moving to the countryside, supplying money to peasants and artisans, persuading them to produce for an international market. With the expansion of world trade and the acquisition of colonies in different parts of the world, the demand for goods began growing.
Source B- Series of inventions in the eighteenth century.
A series of inventions in the eighteenth century increased the efficacy of each step of the production process (carding, twisting and spinning, and rolling). They enhanced the output per worker, enabling each worker to produce more, and they made the production of stronger threads and yarn possible. Then Richard Arkwright created the cotton mill. Till this time, as you have seen, cloth production was spread all over the countryside and carried out within village households.
Source C- Pace of Industrial Change
The most dynamic industries in Britain were clearly cotton and metals. Growing at a rapid pace, cotton was the leading sector in the first phase of industrialisation up to the 1840s. After that the iron and steel industry led the way. With the expansion of railways, in England from the 1840s and in the colonies from the 1860s, the demand for iron and steel increased rapidly. By 1873 Britain was exporting iron and steel worth about £ 77 million, double the value of its cotton export. The new industries could not easily displace traditional industries.
Source A- Situation before the Industrial Revolution.
Question.1. How was the demand for goods began growing before Industrial Revolution?
Source B- Series of inventions in the eighteenth century
Question.2. How the series of inventions in the eighteenth century increased the efficacy of production?
Source C- Pace of Industrial Change
Question.3. Which was the leading sector that grew faster in the first phase of industrialisation?
Ans.1. The demand for goods began growing before Industrial Revolution with the expansion of world trade and the acquisition of colonies in different parts of the world because the demand for goods began growing. But merchant could not expand production within towns.
Ans.2. The series of inventions enhanced the output per worker, which enabled each worker to produce more and they also made the production of threads and yarns possible.
Ans.3. Cotton was the leading sector in the first phase of industrialisation up to the 1840s.
