GEOG 4463     Geography of Africa     Ziehr

STUDY QUESTIONS FOR FINAL EXAM
(The final exam will be Monday, May 1, 2000, 11:00 a.m. -12:50 p.m.)

The final exam will cover all material since the mid-term exam.  This includes chapters 6, 7, 9,10, 11, and 12 in the Aryeetey-Attoh textbook, all lecture material and handouts since the mid-term exam, the oral research reports (including the questions supplied by each student), and the following sections in The Africa Library on the WWW:  Health, Economy, Education, Agriculutre, and Refugees & Humanitarian. Careful study of the concepts and background material regarding the following questions will provide significant preparation for the exam. However, this collection of questions is NOT intended to be all-inclusive of the exact content or form that questions may take on the exam.

Medical Geography
  1. Be able to define the following terms in the context of medical geography:  disease ecology, disease agents, disease vectors, hosts, mortality, morbidity, endemic, epidemic, pandemic, congenital, chronic, and acute.
  2. What are the major differences between the types of illnesses that are most common in highly developed countries and those common in Africa?
  3. Discuss the HIV/AIDS problem in Africa from a cultural, spatial, and economic perspective.
  4. Describe the most common ways that health care services are organized in Africa.
  5. In the context of health what are the most important consequences of poverty in Africa?
  6. What are some of the major pros and cons of traditional medicine in Africa?
Economy
  1. Explain the role, practice, and extent of subsistence farming in Africa.
  2. Explain the role, practice, and extent of cash-crop and commercial agriculture in Africa.
  3. What are the major problems of agricultural production in Africa, and what are some of  the potential solutions to these problems?
  4. In the context of economic geography be able to define:  GNP, GDP, PPP, per capita, quality of life, value added by manufacture, forward linkages, backward linkages, formal sector, informal sector, and import substitution.
  5. How big are Africa's economies? How do they compare with economies in other parts of the world?
  6. How do the economies of different parts of the continent differ from one another?
  7. What are the most important sectors in the economies of African countries?
  8. What are the major imports and exports of African countries?
  9. Explain how external economies of scale contribute to the spatial imbalance in large-scale industries in Africa.
  10. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of private versus public ownership of economic activities in the context of African economic development.
  11. How have "protectionist" policies contributed to the weakness of the manufacturing sector in Africa?
  12. Describe the current land controversy in Zimbabwe including its political, historical, cultural, and economic context.
Urban Geography
  1. Give a brief overview of precolonial urban centers in Africa.
  2. Describe the distribution of the largest cities in Africa in terms of the rank-size rule and the concept of primate cities.
  3. Describe the six general types (based on their history) of African cities.
  4. How does the internal structure of "hybrid" cities in Africa differ from North American cities?
  5. Contrast urbanization trends in Africa and North America.
Human Rights & Political Instability
  1. Explain the adverse effects of capitalist development on African women's access to and use of productive resources.
  2. How are the status of women, women's role in the economy, and family size interrelated?
  3. What are some strategies that might be successful in empowering women in Africa, and why do you believe these strategies would be successful?
  4. Explain several causes of the political instability in Africa.
  5. Describe the situation that led to the genocide in Rwanda during the early 1990s.
  6. What are some of the strategies that have been used to promote political stability in some African countries?
  7. In the context of the political geography of South Africa be able to interrelate the following:  apartheid, bantustans, African National Congress, Nelson Mandela, and W. F. DeKlerk.
  8. Give a general overview of female circumcison in Africa as a human rights controversy.
    Last revised April 22, 2000.