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Integrated Humanities Core - Test

HWA CHONG
INSTITUTION
High School Section Name: Reg. No.: Class: 3 Date:

Study the sources carefully, and then answer all the questions.

You may use any of the sources to help you answer the questions, in addition to
those sources which you are told to use. In answering the questions you should use
your knowledge of the topic to help you interpret and evaluate the sources.

(a) Study Source A.

What is the message of this cartoon? Explain your answer, referring to the
details of the cartoon. [6]

(b) Study Sources B and C.

How similar are these sources about globalization in developing countries?
Explain your answer. [7]

(c) Study Source D.

How useful is this source as evidence about the impact of globalization?
Explain your answer. [7]

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 Has Globalisation Really Benefitted Developing Countries?

Source A A cartoonist’s view of globalization published in a newspaper.

Source B: The opinion of an American professor expressed in an interview.

Many poor countries are suffering from the economic changes brought upon by
globalization. Some benefit but not always equally. Kenya is one of the unsuccessful
countries to globalize, while Vietnam is considered to have been successful. In Vietnam,
employment has risen because labour-intensive industries created about 90 percent of its
exports in the late 1990s. However, in Kenya, the same industry only contributed 16 percent.
China’s authorities was able to effectively regulate its economy hence, it became the main
beneficiary for the decline in the number of poor people while Sub-Saharan Africa benefited
only very marginally. Also, studies have shown that many times the fault of
globalization in poor countries lies in corruption and lack of accountability by
governments.

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Source C: A speech by Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Australia.

The main losers in today’s unequal world are not those that are too much exposed to
globalisation. Studies have shown that the more open economies who have successfully
integrated with the global economy have produced the best growth results, while those
that have remained closed have produced the worst. A 2002 World Bank study of 72
developing countries found that “globalisers” grew almost four times faster than non-
globalisers. In the 1990s, with the exception of Japan, East Asia grew by between 6-8
per cent per annum, and the region’s poverty level fell rapidly. This is because since the
1960s, they have expanded their trade and became increasingly export oriented and
globalised. However, countries that have failed to grow and still suffer desperate poverty
– most notably many countries in sub-Saharan Africa – have failed to integrate into the
world economy.

This failure to integrate is caused by domestic conditions including war and internal
governance.

Source D: An interview with an unemployed Indian citizen.

Murthy sees himself as one of the victims of the "Indian economic wonder" hence, one of
the "losers of globalization". He is one of those who have lost their jobs as a result of
India's economic liberalization. He had worked for 10 years as a food chemist for the
company, which is part of the Anglo-Dutch multinational ‘Unilever’. The company told
Murthy that, at 52 years of age, he was "too old, too inflexible and too expensive." With a
huge and inexhaustible source of young and well-qualified workers, there's little room left
for people like Murthy. "I had to leave my apartment the same month they laid me off," he
says. Now he and his family are living without any kind of appreciable social safety net in
an abandoned house that is falling apart on the edge of Bangalore. They struggle to
make ends meet with his wife's pay.

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