Singapore A-Level H2 China Studies in English central themes overview quiz (SEAB 9627) quiz

Because all of China's earlier history is unimportant and has no bearing on understanding the country as it is today

Because 1978 marks the start of reform and opening up under Deng Xiaoping, which shaped contemporary China

Because the People's Republic of China was itself founded in 1978, making this the true starting point of the modern state

Because all of the available sources for studying China date only from the years after 1978 and none survive from before

It collectivised all farmland once again, returning the countryside to large communal farms run by the state

It abolished farming entirely across the countryside and moved the entire rural population into industrial work

It let households keep or sell surplus produce after meeting state quotas, raising productivity

It banned private plots altogether, forbidding households from growing anything for their own use or for sale

A fully centrally planned economy with no markets at all, in which the state sets every price and output target

A laissez-faire free-market economy with no state involvement whatsoever, left entirely to private competition

An economy with no private enterprise of any kind, in which all firms remain wholly owned and run by the state

Market mechanisms operating within continued Communist Party control and a significant state role

Household registration, tying access to public services and benefits to a registered location

China's foreign exchange rate and the level at which the national currency is pegged against the US dollar

The total number of state-owned enterprises permitted to operate in each province and major coastal city

Membership of the Communist Party and the strict criteria by which new members are recruited and admitted

To close China off completely from foreign trade and seal the coastal regions from outside economic contact

To attract foreign investment and technology and pilot market reforms in designated coastal areas

To collectivise coastal agriculture and gather the farmers of the eastern provinces into large communal farms

To relocate the national capital away from Beijing and towards a newly developed city on the southern coast

They are entirely unrelated to one another, since economic policy and social life in China move along wholly separate tracks

Reform reduced the overall population of the country by driving down the birth rate and emptying the rural villages of people

Reform raised living standards but widened inequality and drove urbanisation, creating social pressures the party manages

Social change caused the economy to shrink, as shifting attitudes and rising expectations dragged down growth and output

Through competitive multiparty elections in which rival parties openly contest power at the national level

By withdrawing entirely from economic management and leaving the running of the economy to private market forces

By abolishing the state sector altogether and privatising every one of the large state-owned enterprises in China

Through economic performance: delivering growth, rising living standards and poverty reduction

Expand China's economic links and influence through infrastructure and investment across many regions

Reduce China's trade with other countries by turning the economy inward towards domestic production and demand

Collectivise Chinese agriculture once more, gathering rural households back into large state-directed communal farms

Replace the Chinese currency with a new unit intended to circulate across the partner countries of the initiative

There is no real difference between the two, since giving a full and accurate account of what the policy was counts as analysing it in the eyes of the examiner

Narrating recounts what the policy was; analysing explains its causes, consequences and the tensions it managed, and weighs its effects

Analysing a policy means deliberately avoiding all specific evidence and relying instead on broad, confident generalisations about it

Narrating the policy always scores higher than analysing it, because examiners most reward a thorough and detailed account of the facts

They are completely separate matters, with China's foreign policy decided entirely without reference to its economy

Economic decline and weakness caused the assertiveness, as a struggling China lashed out abroad to distract its people

Growth provides resources, trade leverage and confidence that underpin a more active and assertive external role

Foreign policy has no link to the economy at all, since strategic decisions are driven only by ideology and security

Because the internet is barely used at all in China, so regulating it is a simple and low-priority administrative task

Because the party-state actively wants to reduce economic growth and sees restricting online commerce as a way to do so

Because information and the internet have no real effect on Chinese society and so can safely be left wholly unregulated

Because controlling information helps manage social pressures and maintain political stability amid rapid change

Because the strands are interlinked, so synoptic analysis (for example reform driving social change and growth enabling foreign assertiveness) strengthens the argument

Because the four strands never interact with one another in any way, so the political, economic, social and external dimensions of China must always be treated in strict isolation in an essay

Because only the economic strand really matters when explaining contemporary China, and the political, social and external dimensions can safely be set aside as minor background detail

Because connecting the various strands together neatly removes the need for any supporting evidence, since the links between them are obvious enough to stand on their own without illustration