Class 6 Social Science Chapter 14: Economic Activities Around Us
- 4 topics
- 80 MCQs
- 24 short answers
- 12 long answers
- 60 flashcards
- 20 games
- ~120 min read
- English
Why Sort the Work, and the First Sector
The list of jobs people do has grown past counting, so the chapter groups them into three sectors. The first is the work that leans directly on nature.
What you will be able to do
- Explain why economic activities need classifying at all.
- Define an economic sector and name the three of them.
- Define the primary sector and give five common examples.
- Apply the test for a primary activity to cases that look industrial.
Key points
Monetary value means worth that can be counted in money, and activities creating it are economic activities.
Once, most people worked at farming, livestock, tool-making, pottery and weaving, and that nearly covered it.
Today the list runs from drones and software to banks, hotels and repairing washing machines.
Activities that resemble one another are gathered into wide groupings called economic sectors.
There are three sectors: primary, secondary and tertiary.
Primary activities are those where people lean directly on nature to produce goods.
The five most common are agriculture, mining, fishing, raising livestock and forestry.
Greenhouse farming and fish farming still count as primary, because what comes out has not been changed in form.
Full explanation
Where this chapter begins
The last chapter split every activity into two groups by asking whether payment changed hands. This one takes only the paid group and asks a second question of it: what sort of work is this? The answer turns out to have three possible values, and the whole chapter is about them.
Monetary value
One word carries over. Monetary value means worth that can be counted in money, and an activity that creates it is an economic activity. That is the group this chapter sorts further.
How the list got so long
There is a reason a classification is needed now, and it is a change over time. Once, most people worked at a short list of things: growing crops, keeping livestock, making tools, firing pottery and weaving cloth. Five sorts of work would almost have covered how a whole society earned its living.
And today
Today the list has no end. People build computers, mobile phones and drones. They work in banks, schools and hotels. They drive vehicles of every kind, make furniture, tailor clothes by machine, write software, and repair refrigerators and washing machines.
Why that matters
A list that long cannot be held in the head at all. Sorting it is what lets you see how the parts work and how they are joined to one another, which is the reason the chapter gives for classifying anything.
Economic sectors
Some activities resemble one another, and the chapter says those can be gathered together on that basis. Each such grouping is an economic sector: a broad band of activities that together carry a country's prosperity. The word broad is fair warning. A sector is not a job, or a place, or an industry. It is much wider than any of those.
How many there are
Three. They are called the primary sector, the secondary sector and the tertiary sector, and every economic activity in the chapter belongs to one of them. The names are dull on purpose; they simply mean first, second and third.
The primary sector
Primary activities are those where people lean directly on nature to produce goods. The word directly is what carries the definition, and it is worth holding on to, because the next sector is defined by not being direct.
Another way to say it
The primary sector takes raw material straight out of nature. Farming, fishing, forestry and the rest. Nothing has been worked on yet; it is being gathered, grown, caught or dug.
The chapter's examples
Growing grain and vegetables on farms. Collecting wood from forests. Taking coal out of mines. Eggs gathered in a poultry shed. Fish lifted from a fishery. Every one of them has nature at the far end of it, and in every one the person is reaching that far end themselves, with nobody in between.
The common five
The chapter names five as the most common: agriculture, mining, fishing, raising livestock and forestry. If you can recall those five you have the sector.
The pictures it shows
Five again, and they are worth noticing because two are not what most people picture. Greenhouse farming, mining, fish farming, forestry and raising livestock.
Why fish farming is interesting
A fishery is not a boat on the open sea. The fish are being raised on purpose, in a pond somebody dug for them and keeps stocked. It still counts as primary, because what comes out of it is a living thing taken straight from nature, and nothing has been done to change what it is.
Greenhouse farming, likewise
A greenhouse is a built structure with glass and controlled air. It still counts as primary, because the crop inside it is being grown rather than processed. Machinery in the picture does not change the sector.
The test to carry forward
Ask two questions, in this order. What does the activity produce, and where did that thing come from? If it came out of the ground, the water, a forest or an animal, and nothing has yet been done to change its form, the activity is primary. Notice that neither question asks where the work was done, or what equipment was used to do it.
Concepts and terms
Worth that can be counted in money. An activity that creates it is an economic activity, which is the group this chapter sorts.
A wide grouping of activities that resemble one another and together carry a country's prosperity. There are three.
Work in which people lean directly on nature to produce goods. Nothing has yet been done to change what is gathered.
What the primary sector supplies: grain, wood, coal, fish, milk. It is the starting point for everything the next sector does.
Trap Alert
Common Misconceptions
Case Study
Scenario:
A class is told that once, nearly everybody worked at farming, livestock, tool-making, pottery and weaving. Imran says life must have been simpler. Their teacher asks the class to name who does those five things now. The children find most are still done, but by far fewer people and often elsewhere. The class then asks where everybody else went, and the answer is into work that did not exist before. Imran sees that the change is not that the old work stopped. It continued with fewer hands, and the hands freed from it went into kinds of work the earlier list had no room for.
Analysis:
The first sector did not shrink by disappearing. Fewer people now produce what nearly everybody once produced, and that is what made other sectors possible.
Activity:
Ask an older relative what their grandparents did for work. Write whether that work still exists near you and who does it.
Activity
Title:
Trace four things back to nature
What You Notice:
Almost nothing within reach is still in the form it was gathered in, which is why a second sector is needed at all.
Safety:
None needed.
Did you know
Greenhouse farming counts as primary even though it uses a built structure with glass and controlled air.
Fish farming is a primary activity, though the pond was dug and the fish were put there deliberately.
The chapter's reason for classifying is not tidiness. It is to see how the parts are joined to one another.
Memory tricks
The three sectors — First, second, third — Primary, secondary and tertiary are only Latin for one, two and three. The names say nothing about importance.
Spotting a primary activity — Ground, water, forest or animal — If the thing produced came from one of those four and has not been changed in form, the activity is primary.
Practice MCQs with answers (20)
- A counted in money and nothing else
- B judged only by the person who made it
- C felt by the family but never measured
- D agreed between neighbours in a village
Show answer
Why:
Which is what makes an activity economic.
- A making pottery from clay by hand
- B weaving cloth on a household loom
- C writing software for a company
- D keeping livestock on a small holding
Show answer
Why:
That one belongs firmly to the modern list.
- A markets
- B factories
- C cooperatives
- D sectors
Show answer
Why:
Wide groupings, three of them.
- A I and II only
- B II and III only
- C I and III only
- D I, II and III
Show answer
Why:
I and III are correct. II is not: once, most people worked at farming, livestock, tool-making, pottery and weaving.
- A Both true, and the reason explains the assertion
- B Both true, but the reason does not explain it
- C The assertion is true and the reason is false
- D The assertion is false and the reason is true
Show answer
Why:
Both are true, and the reason is why the grouping helps. Drones, software, banks, hotels and repairs are all on that list.
- A banking, tailoring and running a hotel kitchen
- B mining, forestry and raising livestock on farms
- C teaching, transporting goods and mending machines
- D making flour, weaving cotton and building a road
Show answer
Why:
Agriculture and fishing complete the five.
- A tertiary sector, because a farmer sells them
- B secondary sector, because a farm is a building
- C primary sector, because they come from animals
- D no sector at all, since eggs are not manufactured
Show answer
Why:
Straight from a living source.
- A True, because glass and machinery are involved
- B True, because the crop is grown out of season
- C False, because the crop is grown and not processed
- D False, because greenhouses are not used in India
Show answer
Why:
The setting does not change the sector.
- A forest, mine, fishery
- B mine, fishery, forest
- C fishery, forest, mine
- D mine, forest, fishery
Show answer
Why:
All three are primary sources.
- A primary, since the fish come straight from nature
- B secondary, since the pond had to be dug first
- C tertiary, since the fish are sold to customers
- D outside the three sectors described in the chapter
Show answer
Why:
Exactly the chapter's fish farming case.
- A a secondary activity, because timber is a product
- B a tertiary activity, because collection is a service
- C a primary activity, because wood is gathered as it is
- D not an economic activity, because nothing was made
Show answer
Why:
Collecting wood from forests is the chapter's example.
- A a miner bringing coal up from underground
- B a shepherd moving a flock between pastures
- C a fisher hauling a net into a small boat
- D a miller grinding wheat grain into flour
Show answer
Why:
Grinding changes the form of the grain.
- A to make a long list look neater on a page
- B to see how activities work and how they link up
- C to decide which kinds of work are most useful
- D to count how many people work in each sector
Show answer
Why:
Links are what the rest of the chapter is about.
- A most primary work is done out in the open air
- B the next sector is defined by not being direct
- C it shows that primary work is harder than other work
- D nature cannot be reached in any other manner
Show answer
Why:
The whole classification hinges on it.
- A they only mean first, second and third
- B they were chosen by different writers entirely
- C the third sector is in fact the largest one
- D the names change from country to country
Show answer
Why:
Nothing about importance is implied.
- A more people live in towns than they used to
- B pottery and weaving are no longer practised
- C older lists were written down and modern ones are not
- D drones and software sit beside farming and weaving
Show answer
Why:
The old work did not vanish; the list grew.
- A how much is the worker paid for doing it
- B where did the thing produced actually come from
- C how many people are employed in that place
- D is the work done indoors or out in the open
Show answer
Why:
Ground, water, forest or animal, unchanged in form.
- A resemble one another and support a nation's prosperity
- B are all carried out inside a single large building
- C are managed by one department of the government
- D employ roughly the same number of workers each
Show answer
Why:
Resemblance is the basis of the grouping.
- A a bank lending money to a shopkeeper
- B a teacher preparing a lesson for a class
- C a mechanic repairing a tractor for a farmer
- D a forest yielding wood for a furniture maker
Show answer
Why:
Raw material passing to the next sector.
- A modern work is easier than older work was
- B only farming really matters to a country
- C all work should be done close to nature
- D work is sorted by where the product came from
Show answer
Why:
Which is why a greenhouse is still primary.
Important short questions (6)
Worth that can be counted in money. An activity that creates it is an economic activity, and those are what this chapter goes on to sort.
Because the number of activities people earn from has grown enormously. A list running from farming to drones and software cannot be understood whole.
A wide grouping of activities that resemble one another and together carry a country's prosperity. They are the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors.
Work in which people lean directly on nature to produce goods. Agriculture, mining, fishing, raising livestock and forestry.
Because the crop inside is being grown rather than changed into another form. The glass structure and the machinery do not decide the sector.
Ask what is produced and where it came from. If it came from the ground, the water, a forest or an animal, and its form has not been changed, it is primary.
Long answer questions (3)
The number of activities people earn a living from has grown enormously. Once, most work fell under crops, livestock, tools, pottery and cloth. Today people build computers, mobile phones and drones, work in banks, schools and hotels, drive vehicles, make furniture, tailor by machine, write software and mend household machines. A list that long cannot be grasped whole. Sorting it lets you see how the activities work and what links they have with one another. The unit of sorting is the economic sector, a wide grouping of activities that resemble one another and together carry a country's prosperity. There are three such sectors.
Primary activities are those in which people lean directly on nature to produce goods. The sector takes raw material straight out of nature, as in agriculture, mining, fishing, raising livestock and forestry. Two of the chapter's own pictures look as though they should break the rule. Greenhouse farming happens inside a built structure of glass with controlled air, and fish farming happens in a pond that was dug on purpose. Both are still primary. What decides the sector is what is produced and where it came from, not where the work is done. In both cases something is being grown or raised, and nothing has yet been done to change its form.
Primary, secondary and tertiary mean no more than first, second and third. Nothing in them ranks one sector above another, and the chapter never claims that farming matters more than banking or the other way round. What the order does tell you is how far the work sits from nature. The primary sector deals with nature directly, taking grain, coal, fish and wood as they come. The secondary sector works on what the primary sector has supplied. The tertiary sector supports both of the others. So the numbering describes a sequence of dependence, not a league table, and the last part of the chapter shows all three needing each other.
Flashcards (15)
Play this topic
- Match the pairs
- Primary or not?
- Fact or myth?
- Complete it
- Quick fire
The Second Sector, Where Form Is Changed
Grain becomes flour, ore becomes steel, and steel becomes a truck. The second sector takes what nature supplied and turns it into something else, and it builds and supplies too.
What you will be able to do
- Define a secondary activity and say how it differs from a primary one.
- Name the three kinds of work the sector contains.
- Give examples in which a material enters in one form and leaves in another.
- Read India's 2022 automobile figures and say what they show.
Key points
Secondary activities depend on what the primary sector produced, and change it into goods.
The sector covers construction of buildings and roads, utilities such as water, electricity and gas, and manufacturing.
Manufacturing takes raw material from the primary sector and processes it into a form that can be sold or used.
Grain is milled into flour, oil is pressed from groundnut, and tea leaves are processed to give tea.
Wood becomes furniture and paper, cotton becomes clothes, and iron ore becomes steel and then vehicles.
An activity is secondary whether its product is finished or will be worked on again, as steel is.
India's 2022 production: forty-five lakh passenger vehicles and two crore two wheelers.
Two wheelers outnumber cars more than fourfold, on figures from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.
Full explanation
What the second sector does
Secondary activities are those in which people depend on what the primary sector has produced, and change it into goods. Two things are being claimed at once: the material comes from somewhere else, and its form does not stay as it was.
Why that follows from the first sector
The primary sector was defined by depending on nature directly. This one depends on nature too, but at one remove, through whatever the primary sector handed over. That is the whole difference between them.
Three kinds of work inside it
The chapter puts three rather different things in this sector, and it is worth separating them. Construction. Utilities. Manufacturing.
Construction
Putting up buildings, laying roads, and so on. Nothing is being made in a factory here, and no production line runs. But stone, steel, cement and timber are all being worked into something they were not before, which is the same shape of change that goes on inside a factory.
Utilities
Supplying water, electricity, gas and other such necessities. This one surprises almost everybody, because supplying water sounds like a service, and services are the third sector's business. The chapter places utilities here all the same, and it is worth learning as an exception rather than reasoning it out each time.
Manufacturing
Taking what the primary sector produces and working it, in a factory or a production unit, into a different form that can be sold on or put to use. This is the case most people picture first when the sector is mentioned, and it is the one the chapter spends most of its examples on.
Six examples worth learning
Grain from fields milled into flour. Oil pressed out of groundnut. Tea leaves processed to give tea. Wood from the forest turned into furniture and paper. Cotton made into clothes. Iron ore turned into steel, and steel into cars and trucks.
What every one of those shares
Look at the shape of each. Something enters in one form and leaves in another. Grain is not flour, a groundnut is not oil, a tree is not a chair, and ore is not a car. The change of form is the test.
The ore-to-automobile chain
That last example is longer than the others and deserves attention. Iron ore comes out of the ground, which is primary. It is turned into steel, which is secondary. The steel is then made into cars and trucks, which is secondary again.
A stage does not have to be the last one
There is a lesson hidden in that chain. An activity is secondary whether it produces a finished article or something that will be worked on again. Steel is not the end of anything, and making it still counts.
How much is actually made
The chapter gives India's automobile production for the year 2022, and the figures are worth reading carefully, because the largest number is attached to the smallest vehicle.
The four figures
Passenger vehicles such as cars: forty-five lakh. Commercial vehicles such as trucks: ten point three lakh. Three wheelers: eight point six lakh. Two wheelers: two crore.
Reading them properly
The figures are written in two different units, which is the trap. A crore is a hundred lakh, so two crore is two hundred lakh. On that reckoning two wheelers outnumber cars more than four times over, and they outnumber trucks by roughly twenty to one. The source given is the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.
Every one of those is secondary
Whatever the vehicle, the activity that produced it is a secondary one. Steel, rubber, glass and plastic went in, and a machine came out. Nothing in that list was gathered from nature in the shape it was sold in.
The question to ask
For any activity, ask two things. Did the material it works on arrive from somewhere else? And does it leave in a different form from the one it came in? Two yeses make the activity secondary. Notice that neither question asks about a factory, which is why laying a road qualifies and picking cotton does not.
Concepts and terms
Work that depends on the primary sector's output and changes it into goods. It reaches nature at one remove, not directly.
Making products in factories and production units by processing raw material into another form that can be sold or used.
Water, electricity, gas and similar necessities. The chapter places supplying them in the second sector, not the third.
The test for this sector. Grain is not flour, a tree is not a chair, and ore is not a car.
Trap Alert
Common Misconceptions
Case Study
Scenario:
A class traces a cotton shirt back as far as it can. Shop, factory, spinning mill, field. Rohit says the factory made the shirt. Their teacher asks what the factory started with. Thread, which came from cotton, which came from a field. The class marks where the form changed rather than where something new appeared. Cotton became thread and thread became cloth, and at no point was any new material created. Sana writes the conclusion. The second sector depends entirely on what the first produced, because changing the form of something requires that the something already exists.
Analysis:
Tracing the shirt backwards reaches a field, not a factory. The second sector changes form and cannot begin without the first sector's output.
Activity:
Trace one object you own back to a raw material. Mark each point where its form changed.
Activity
Title:
Find the change of form
What You Notice:
Most kitchen items have passed through the second sector at least once, and several have passed through it twice, as ore does on its way to a truck.
Safety:
Do not open or taste anything without an adult's leave.
Did you know
India produced two crore two wheelers in 2022, which is more than four times its output of passenger vehicles.
Supplying water is placed in the second sector, though it sounds much more like a service.
Making steel is secondary even though steel is not a finished article and will be worked on again.
Memory tricks
The three kinds of work — Build, supply, make — Construction puts things up, utilities supply water and power, and manufacturing turns material into goods.
The test for the sector — Came from elsewhere, leaves different — If the material arrived from another sector and its form has changed by the end, the activity is secondary.
Practice MCQs with answers (20)
- A nature, reached without anything in between
- B services provided by doctors and teachers
- C money borrowed from a bank to start with
- D what the primary sector has already produced
Show answer
Why:
Nature at one remove.
- A construction of buildings and of roads
- B supply of water, electricity and gas
- C manufacturing goods in factory units
- D treatment of patients in a hospital
Show answer
Why:
That belongs to the third sector.
- A flour
- B oil
- C tea
- D paper
Show answer
Why:
A change of form in a mill.
- A cotton
- B groundnut
- C tea leaves
- D iron ore
Show answer
Why:
One of the chapter's six examples.
- A cars directly from the mined rock
- B trucks assembled at the mine itself
- C steel, which is then made into vehicles
- D paper, in the same production unit
Show answer
Why:
Two secondary stages, not one.
- A eight point six lakh of them
- B ten point three lakh of them
- C forty-five lakh of them
- D two crore of them
Show answer
Why:
The largest of the four figures.
- A passenger vehicles, forty-five lakh
- B commercial vehicles, two crore units
- C three wheelers, forty-five lakh units
- D two wheelers, ten point three lakh
Show answer
Why:
Trucks were ten point three lakh.
- A True, because supplying is clearly a service
- B True, because water is not manufactured at all
- C False, the chapter places utilities in the second
- D False, water supply belongs to the primary sector
Show answer
Why:
It catches most readers out.
- A furniture, oil, clothes
- B clothes, furniture, oil
- C oil, clothes, furniture
- D clothes, oil, furniture
Show answer
Why:
Wood also gives paper.
- A primary, because wheat comes out of the soil
- B tertiary, because the mill serves the farmers
- C primary, because no factory is involved in it
- D secondary, because the grain changes its form
Show answer
Why:
Grain is not flour.
- A tertiary, because a road is used as a service
- B primary, because stone is taken from the earth
- C secondary, because construction sits in that sector
- D outside the three sectors, being government work
Show answer
Why:
Construction is named explicitly.
- A secondary, though the bars are not a finished article
- B tertiary, because the bars are supplied to others
- C primary, because metal ultimately comes from ore
- D not economic at all, since scrap has no value
Show answer
Why:
Unfinished output still counts.
- A because both are carried out inside a factory
- B because both employ very large numbers of workers
- C because both work material into something new
- D because both are owned by private companies
Show answer
Why:
Stone and steel become a road or a building.
- A that some materials are more valuable than others
- B that an activity can be secondary more than once over
- C that mining is the most important of all activities
- D that trucks cost more to build than cars do
Show answer
Why:
Ore to steel, then steel to truck.
- A I and II only
- B II and III only
- C I and III only
- D I, II and III
Show answer
Why:
All three are correct. The second sector changes what the first produced, and construction and milling are both examples of that change.
- A was bought rather than gathered by the worker
- B came from elsewhere and leaves in a new form
- C was handled inside a building of some kind
- D passed through the hands of several people
Show answer
Why:
Two yeses, and nothing else is needed.
- A Both true, and the reason explains the assertion
- B Both true, but the reason does not explain it
- C The assertion is true and the reason is false
- D The assertion is false and the reason is true
Show answer
Why:
Both statements are true, but the reason does not explain it. Listing what the sector contains is not the same as saying why it leans on another. It depends on the first because it takes its raw material from there and changes the form of it.
- A needs works that treat and deliver the resource
- B is done by companies rather than by government
- C costs money that households have to pay for
- D happens in every town and village alike
Show answer
Why:
The chapter groups them with construction and manufacturing.
- A the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers
- B the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
- C the Reserve Bank of India's annual report
- D the Census of India's household survey
Show answer
Why:
Given as the source beneath the table.
- A employs more people than the other two sectors
- B produces everything a country needs to live on
- C changes the form of what nature supplied
- D sells goods to the people who will use them
Show answer
Why:
And builds and supplies besides.
Important short questions (6)
Work in which people depend on what the primary sector has produced and change it into goods. Nature is reached at one remove.
Construction, such as buildings and roads. Utilities, such as water, electricity and gas. And manufacturing in factories and production units.
Grain milled into flour, groundnut pressed for oil, and wood turned into furniture or paper.
Ore is taken from the ground, which is primary. It is turned into steel, which is secondary. The steel is made into a truck, which is secondary again.
Forty-five lakh passenger vehicles and two crore two wheelers. Two crore is two hundred lakh, so two wheelers outnumber cars more than fourfold.
Because ore arrived from another sector and leaves in a different form. It does not matter that steel is unfinished and will be worked on again.
Long answer questions (3)
Secondary activities are those in which people depend on what the primary sector produced and change it into goods, so they reach nature at one remove rather than directly. The sector holds three kinds of work. Construction puts up buildings and lays roads. Utilities supply water, electricity, gas and other necessities. Manufacturing makes products in factories and production units. Four examples of the change of form are grain milled into flour, groundnut pressed for oil, wood turned into furniture and paper, and iron ore made into steel. In every case something enters in one form and leaves in another.
Iron ore is taken out of the ground, and that first step is a primary activity, because the material comes straight from nature. The ore is then turned into steel, which is a secondary activity, since the ore arrived from another sector and its form has changed. The steel is then made into cars and trucks, and that is secondary as well. The chain shows two things. First, one material can pass through the second sector more than once. Second, an activity is secondary whether its product is a finished article or something that will be worked on again, since steel is the end of nothing.
The chapter gives four figures for the year 2022. Passenger vehicles such as cars came to forty-five lakh. Commercial vehicles such as trucks came to ten point three lakh. Three wheelers came to eight point six lakh. Two wheelers came to two crore. To compare them you have to know that a crore is a hundred lakh, so two crore means two hundred lakh. On that reckoning two wheelers outnumber cars more than four times over, and outnumber trucks by roughly twenty to one. The largest number belongs to the smallest vehicle. The figures come from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, and every vehicle in them was made by a secondary activity.
Flashcards (15)
Play this topic
- Match the pairs
- Which sector?
- Fact or myth?
- Complete it
- Quick fire
The Third Sector, the One You Cannot See
Nothing is grown here and nothing changes form. The third sector is defined by whom it helps, and it holds the driver, the doctor, the mechanic and the warehouse alike.
What you will be able to do
- Define a tertiary activity and explain why its definition has a different shape.
- Give examples from transport, the professions, repair work and storage.
- Explain what a warehouse is and why storage counts as a service.
- Use the three tests together to place any activity in a sector.
Key points
Tertiary activities are those that give support to people working in the first two sectors.
The definition names who is helped, not what is produced, because nothing material is produced.
The chapter warns that these services may not be visible but still play a very important role.
A truck driver carrying produce from farm to market is a tertiary worker, though nothing is grown or changed.
Doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers and pilots all provide services to those who need them.
Technicians, mechanics and electricians repair and maintain, which supports workers in the other sectors.
A warehouse is a large building where goods are kept before being sold, used or let out to shops.
The tertiary sector is also called the service sector, and that name carries most of the definition.
Full explanation
The third definition
Tertiary activities are all those that give support to the people working in the first two sectors. That is a definition of quite a different shape from the other two, and the difference is worth pausing on. It does not say what the activity produces. It says who it helps.
Why the shape is different
The first sector was defined by its source, which is nature. The second was defined by what it does to a material, namely change its form. The third produces no material whatever, so there is no source to point at and no change to describe. All that is left to define it by is what it is for.
The warning the chapter gives
These include services we may not be able to see, which still play a very important role. That sentence exists because an invisible contribution is easy to undervalue, and the rest of the topic is spent making it visible.
The first example
A truck driver carries grain and vegetables away from the farm, to a factory or else to the market. Nothing has been grown on that journey and nothing has changed form. Yet without it, the farm's output stays exactly where it was, and the factory has nothing at all to work on.
The second
Fruit and vegetable vendors sell the farm's produce to households. Again nothing is grown or made. The service is that the produce reaches the person who will eat it.
The professions
Doctors and nurses, teachers, lawyers and pilots all give their services to whoever has need of them. Five occupations, and as work they could hardly be more unlike one another. The only thing they share is that each one serves somebody.
The people who mend things
Technicians who mend and service electronic goods, phones and televisions among them. Mechanics who put vehicles right, cars and tractors alike. Electricians who keep the supply of electricity running.
What repair work shows
A mechanic mending a tractor is supporting a farmer, and a farmer is in the first sector. That is the definition working exactly as written: support given to somebody engaged in another sector. Nothing was grown and nothing was made, and the tractor now runs.
The chapter's own summary of them
Their services make our lives easier. It is a modest sentence for a sector that turns out to contain a great deal.
The longer list
Communication by mobile phone and by internet. Software development. And services at hotels and restaurants, at banks and schools, at hospitals and airports, at shops and at warehouses. It is a long list, and it is meant to be.
Warehouses
The chapter stops to explain that word, which is a sign it expects trouble. A warehouse is a large building where goods are kept before they are sold, used, or let out to shops. Storage counts as a service too, even though nothing whatever happens to the goods inside it.
Its other name
The tertiary sector is also called the service sector, and that name is the more descriptive of the two. If you forget the definition, the other name carries most of it.
The three tests side by side
Ask where the product came from, and you can settle the first sector. Ask whether its form changed, and you can settle the second. Ask whether the work supports somebody else's work, and you have the third. Three questions cover every activity in this chapter.
A common confusion
Software development sits here, though writing software certainly feels like making something, and people do speak of building it. What results is not a material good, and it serves whoever uses it. So the chapter places it among the services rather than in the second sector.
Why this sector grows
Look back at the modern list from the first topic: banks, schools, hotels, software, repairs, transport. Almost every new kind of work on it belongs to this third sector, which is why it has grown so much.
Concepts and terms
Work that supports the people engaged in the first two sectors. It is defined by whom it helps rather than by what it makes.
The other name for the tertiary sector, and the more descriptive of the two. Nothing material is produced in it.
A large building where goods are kept before they are sold, used or let out to shops. Storage counts as a service.
Many of these services cannot be seen, which is exactly why the chapter insists they play a very important role.
Trap Alert
Common Misconceptions
Case Study
Scenario:
A class is asked to name what a bus driver produces. Nobody can name an object. Arjun concludes the work produces nothing. Their teacher asks the class to remove the buses for a week and list what fails. Children cannot reach school, goods cannot reach shops, and workers cannot reach jobs. The list is long. The class sees that the driver produces no object and makes a great deal of other work possible. Arjun revises his answer. The third sector is defined by whom it supports rather than by what it makes, which is why looking for an object was the wrong test.
Analysis:
Arjun applied a test from the first two sectors to the third. Removing the service for a week is what makes output visible when nothing material is produced.
Activity:
Name three services you used this week. For each, write what would fail without it.
Activity
Title:
Follow one vegetable
What You Notice:
Most of the people on a list like this turn out to be in the third sector, and the chain breaks wherever one of them is removed.
Safety:
None needed.
Did you know
Storing goods in a warehouse counts as a service, although nothing at all happens to the goods inside it.
A mechanic mending a tractor is supporting a farmer, which is the tertiary definition working exactly as written.
Software development is placed here, because what it makes is not a material good.
Memory tricks
The three tests — Source, form, support — Where did it come from gives the first sector. Did its form change gives the second. Does it support somebody's work gives the third.
The sector's other name — Tertiary is service — If the definition slips away, the second name carries most of it: this is the sector that serves.
Practice MCQs with answers (20)
- A take raw material straight out of nature
- B change the form of what has been gathered
- C are carried out inside towns and cities only
- D give support to workers in the other sectors
Show answer
Why:
Purpose, not product.
- A service
- B support
- C supply
- D sales
Show answer
Why:
The more descriptive of its two names.
- A factory
- B warehouse
- C market
- D workshop
Show answer
Why:
Or before they are used or let out to shops.
- A farmers, miners, fishers, foresters and herders
- B millers, weavers, smelters, masons and tailors
- C vendors, drivers, cleaners, guards and cooks
- D doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers and pilots
Show answer
Why:
Five professions, all serving somebody.
- A primary
- B secondary
- C tertiary
- D no
Show answer
Why:
Nothing is grown or changed on the way.
- A cost more than people expect them to cost
- B may not be visible, yet matter a great deal
- C are found only in the very largest of cities
- D were unknown in India until recent decades
Show answer
Why:
An invisible contribution is easy to undervalue.
- A because tractors are made in a factory first
- B because repairing is harder than manufacturing
- C because mechanics are paid a wage by the day
- D because the farmer he helps is in another sector
Show answer
Why:
Support given across sectors.
- A True, because the goods are simply left alone
- B True, because a warehouse produces nothing at all
- C False, because storage keeps goods safe until needed
- D False, because warehouses are always very large
Show answer
Why:
A service supports without changing anything.
- A vehicles, electronics, power supply
- B electronics, vehicles, power supply
- C power supply, vehicles, electronics
- D electronics, power supply, vehicles
Show answer
Why:
Phones, tractors, wires.
- A primary sector, since milk comes from animals
- B secondary sector, since bread has been baked
- C no sector, since her shop is a very small one
- D tertiary sector, since she serves her customers
Show answer
Why:
Retail is a service.
- A tertiary, because it supports another sector's workers
- B primary, because it concerns crops and their prices
- C secondary, because software is built and assembled
- D outside the sectors, since nothing physical is made
Show answer
Why:
Software development sits with services.
- A secondary, since steel is a manufactured good
- B primary, since the steel began as iron ore
- C not economic, because nothing is produced
- D tertiary, since it supports both other sectors
Show answer
Why:
Transport between two secondary workplaces.
- A because its workers are paid in different ways
- B because nothing material comes out of the sector
- C because it is the largest of the three sectors
- D because its services are provided free of charge
Show answer
Why:
There is no product to describe.
- A who is helped, and how much is paid for it
- B where the work is done, and by how many people
- C where it came from, and whether its form changed
- D how long it takes, and what equipment is needed
Show answer
Why:
Support is the third question.
- A I and II only
- B II and III only
- C I and III only
- D I, II and III
Show answer
Why:
I and II are correct. III is not: nothing material is produced, which is why the definition names who is HELPED.
- A because farming has stopped in most of the country
- B because factories now need far fewer workers
- C because almost every new kind of work is a service
- D because services are easier than other kinds of work
Show answer
Why:
Banks, software, repairs, transport, hotels.
- A both hold goods until somebody needs them
- B both provide a service without making a good
- C both change the form of what passes through
- D both belong to the secondary sector of activity
Show answer
Why:
Neither produces anything material.
- A make our lives easier than they would be
- B earn the highest incomes in the country
- C are needed only by people in the cities
- D cost more than goods from a factory do
Show answer
Why:
A modest sentence for a large sector.
- A Both true, and the reason explains the assertion
- B Both true, but the reason does not explain it
- C The assertion is true and the reason is false
- D The assertion is false and the reason is true
Show answer
Why:
The assertion is true and the reason is false. Services are the tertiary sector, not the primary one. They are easy to overlook because the work often cannot be seen, and yet it plays a very important role.
- A grows nothing and makes nothing, but serves
- B produces the most valuable goods of the three
- C exists only where the other two are absent
- D was the first of the three sectors to appear
Show answer
Why:
Which is why it is called the service sector.
Important short questions (6)
One that gives support to the people working in the primary and secondary sectors. It is defined by whom it helps rather than by what it makes.
Because carrying grain and vegetables from a farm to a factory or market supports others. Nothing is grown, and nothing changes form.
Technicians mend electronic items such as phones and televisions. Mechanics mend vehicles such as cars and tractors. Electricians keep the electricity supply running.
A large building where goods are kept before being sold, used or let out to shops. Storage supports the people who made the goods and those who will sell them.
Because nothing material comes out of it, so there is no product to describe. The definition has to name the purpose instead.
Where did the product come from, for the first. Did its form change, for the second. Does the work support somebody else's work, for the third.
Long answer questions (3)
Tertiary activities are those that give support to the people working in the primary and secondary sectors, and the sector is also called the service sector. Four kinds of work within it are these. Transport, as when a truck driver carries grain and vegetables from a farm to a factory or market. The professions, such as doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers and pilots, who provide their services to whoever needs them. Repair work, by technicians who mend phones and televisions, mechanics who mend cars and tractors, and electricians who keep electricity flowing. And services at places such as hotels, banks, schools, hospitals, airports, shops and warehouses.
The first sector is defined by where its product comes from, namely nature reached directly. The second is defined by what it does to a material, changing its form. Neither of those works for the third. Nothing material comes out of it at all, so there is no source to name and no change of form to point at. The definition names the purpose instead: support given to workers in the other two sectors. What follows is that the contribution is often invisible, which is why the chapter insists these unseen services still matter greatly.
The chapter's older list of livelihoods held crops, livestock, tools, pottery and cloth, and every one of those falls in the first or the second sector. Its modern list looks quite different. Working in banks, schools and hotels, driving vehicles for transport, writing software, and repairing refrigerators and washing machines are all services, and so belong to the third sector. Building computers, phones and drones and making furniture are the exceptions, and those are secondary. So most of what is new is service work. That explains why the third sector has grown so much. It also explains why the chapter insists that invisible work still matters.
Flashcards (15)
Play this topic
- Match the pairs
- Which sector?
- Fact or myth?
- Complete it
- Quick fire
Anand, and the Three Sectors as One
Farmers who once sold milk to middlemen at meagre prices built a cooperative instead. Following their milk from the cow to a shop passes through all three sectors in turn.
What you will be able to do
- Describe the farmers' position before the cooperative and what made it difficult.
- Explain what a cooperative is and how AMUL came to be founded.
- Assign each stage of the milk's journey to its sector.
- Show the same three-sector pattern in the making of a textbook.
Key points
Farmers in Anand milk their cows and sell to a nearby dairy, and are paid monthly on quantity and quality.
In the early 1940s they walked or cycled to nearby villages in scorching heat, because milk curdles fast.
They came to depend on middlemen, who bought in bulk at meagre prices and often left them feeling cheated.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel advised them to form a cooperative and stop depending on middlemen.
A cooperative is owned by its members, who join voluntarily and take decisions collectively.
AMUL was set up in 1946 under Tribhuvandas Patel and Dr Varghese Kurien.
Milking is primary, making butter and milk powder is secondary, and transport, trade and retail are tertiary.
The same three-sector pattern makes a textbook: pulp from trees, paper from pulp, printing and distribution.
Full explanation
What this last part is for
The three sectors have been defined one at a time, each with its own test. Now the chapter shows all three working together on a single product, because that is the point of having classified anything in the first place. It takes a real example, from Anand district in Gujarat, and follows it from a cowshed to a shop counter.
The morning as it is now
Farmers there begin the day with milk pails clinking and their cows and buffaloes calling. They milk the animals and sell the milk to the dairy nearby. A dairy is simply a place where milk is gathered and kept.
How they are paid
At the end of the month they are paid for that milk, and the amount depends on two things: how much they gave, and how good it was. Quantity and quality together.
But not eighty years ago
None of that arrangement existed in the early nineteen forties, and the difference is what the story is about. Then, farmers in Anand sold their milk to villages round about.
The daily problem
They had to cycle or walk to those villages, under a scorching sun. In heat milk turns and curdles within hours, so the selling had to be done quickly, whatever price was offered. A great deal of effort produced a very small amount of money. That is the position the story begins from.
The middlemen
So they came to depend on middlemen: people who buy from producers and sell on to consumers, charging for that service. These middlemen bought milk in bulk at meagre prices and sold it in the market.
What the farmers felt
Cheated, and harassed. The chapter uses both words and does not soften either. That is the position a farmer is in when bargaining alone, holding something that will be worthless by tomorrow. Refusing a low price was not a real choice.
Going to Sardar Patel
One day the farmers went, together, to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a prominent national leader, and put their problems to him. His advice was to form a cooperative and stop depending on middlemen.
What a cooperative is
A group of people who come together of their own accord, formally, to meet needs both economic and social. The members own it, and decisions are taken by them collectively.
What that would let them do
Buy and sell milk as a group, and run the whole operation themselves: collection, processing and distribution. Nobody would stand between the farmer and the market.
AMUL
The farmers took the advice. Anand Milk Union Limited was set up in 1946. Two men led it. Tribhuvandas Patel was a lawyer, and had been a freedom fighter. Dr Varghese Kurien was an engineer, who had been working at a dairy factory in Mumbai before he came.
What changed
It brought farmers together, women among them, and gave them control over producing and selling milk. They made their own decisions on every matter, including pasteurisation, which means heating milk to a set temperature so that harmful bacteria die. The tasks were shared out among everybody, and incomes rose gradually. They no longer needed the middlemen at all.
Growing into a factory
As more farmers joined, the milk collected grew so large that they decided to make other things from it. They set up a factory at Anand and began producing butter and milk powder.
Today
Many processing plants and factories across India. A wide range of products. Selling through small and large retail shops everywhere, and exports to several countries besides. Retail means selling in small quantities to whoever will use the goods.
Now name the sectors
Milking the cows to sell the milk is primary, because the milk comes straight from a natural source. Turning it into powder, ghee, cheese and butter is secondary. Moving it by lorry, rail, air and ship, and trading and retailing it, is tertiary.
The same shape in a textbook
The chapter makes the point twice. Pulp is taken from trees, paper is made from the pulp, and the paper is printed into the books you study. None of it would have happened without all three sectors working together.
Concepts and terms
A group who join of their own accord to meet economic and social needs formally. The members own it and decide together.
People who buy from producers and sell on to consumers, charging for that service. In this story they paid meagre prices.
Heating milk to a set temperature so that harmful bacteria are killed and the milk keeps longer.
The three sectors needing one another. Milk must be produced, processed and carried before anybody can buy it.
Trap Alert
Common Misconceptions
Case Study
Scenario:
Twenty-two families in a hill village grow oranges. For years each family carried its own fruit down to the roadhead. There they sold to whichever trader was waiting, at whatever price he offered. Oranges bruise within a day or two. Nobody could afford to refuse and walk back up the hill. In 2021 the families formed a body of their own. Every family joined by choice, and each holds one share. Prices and plans are settled at a meeting, with one vote to a household. They now grade the fruit together. The smaller oranges used to be thrown away. Now they go to a shed at the roadhead. There they are pressed into juice and bottled. A hired lorry takes the boxed fruit and the bottles to two towns. Three shops there sell them to families. A small quantity now goes to a buyer abroad.
Analysis:
Every element of this has appeared in the chapter already. The body the families formed is a cooperative. Membership is voluntary, the members own it, and they decide collectively, one vote to a household. The traders at the roadhead were middlemen, buying from producers to sell on. The families were weak against them for the reason the Anand farmers were weak. A product that spoils in a day leaves no room to bargain. All three sectors are here on one product. Growing and picking the oranges is primary, since the fruit comes straight from nature. Pressing and bottling juice is secondary, because the form has changed. It is also the Anand pattern of processing what would be wasted. The lorry, the shops and the sale abroad are tertiary.
Activity:
Find one thing grown or made near where you live. Draw three boxes across a page, label them primary, secondary and tertiary, and write into each box what happens to that thing at that stage. If a box comes out empty, write underneath why that stage is missing, and who would do it if it existed.
Did you know
Dr Varghese Kurien was an engineer, and had been working at a dairy factory in Mumbai before Anand.
Tribhuvandas Patel, who led the cooperative with him, was a lawyer and a freedom fighter.
The cooperative began making butter and milk powder only because the milk collected had grown too large to sell as milk.
Memory tricks
The milk's journey — Cow, factory, lorry — Milking is primary, turning it into butter and powder is secondary, and carrying and selling it is tertiary.
Why the cooperative worked — Own it, and decide it — The members owned the body and took the decisions, so nobody stood between them and the market.
Practice MCQs with answers (20)
- A Anand district, in Gujarat
- B Kolar district, in Karnataka
- C Nashik district, in Maharashtra
- D Meerut district, in Uttar Pradesh
Show answer
Why:
AMUL takes its name from the place.
- A quantity and its quality together
- B quantity alone, measured in litres
- C quality alone, judged at the dairy
- D distance travelled to the dairy
Show answer
Why:
Both measures count.
- A freezes
- B thickens
- C curdles
- D evaporates
Show answer
Why:
Which is why it had to be sold quickly.
- A Cooperatives
- B Middlemen
- C Engineers
- D Warehouses
Show answer
Why:
They charge for standing in between.
- A 1926
- B 1936
- C 1946
- D 1956
Show answer
Why:
A year before independence.
- A Tribhuvandas Patel, the village's own lawyer
- B Tribhuvandas Patel, the lawyer
- C the manager of the nearby dairy
- D Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a national leader
Show answer
Why:
The farmers went to him together.
- A the members, acting collectively
- B a manager appointed by the state
- C the largest supplier among them
- D the buyers who purchase the goods
Show answer
Why:
And the members own it too.
- A True, the factory came first of all
- B True, and the cooperative grew around it
- C False, the factory came because milk grew plentiful
- D False, there was never any factory at all at Anand town
Show answer
Why:
Butter and milk powder followed success.
- A secondary, primary, tertiary
- B tertiary, secondary, primary
- C primary, tertiary, secondary
- D primary, secondary, tertiary
Show answer
Why:
The order of the three sectors exactly.
- A a cooperative that they own between them
- B a factory belonging to one of the weavers
- C a warehouse for storing woven cloth
- D a middleman service for other weavers
Show answer
Why:
Voluntary, owned by members, decided collectively.
- A curdling
- B pasteurisation
- C exporting
- D retailing
Show answer
Why:
The farmers decided on it themselves.
- A an export, since butter crosses a boundary
- B wholesale, since a whole kilogram is sold
- C pasteurisation, since the butter was heated
- D retail, since it is sold to the person using it
Show answer
Why:
Small quantities, to the end user.
- A they owned too few cows between all of them
- B each bargained alone with a product that spoils
- C the roads to the nearby villages were very poor
- D no market existed for milk in that district
Show answer
Why:
Heat and haste left no room to negotiate.
- A the cows gave a greater quantity of milk
- B the weather in Anand became less severe
- C the farmers ran collection and sale themselves
- D the middlemen began paying much better prices
Show answer
Why:
Collection, processing and distribution, all theirs.
- A that Gujarat produces more milk than other states
- B that cooperatives are better than private firms
- C that dairy work is the hardest kind of farming
- D that the three sectors depend on one another
Show answer
Why:
One product, all three sectors.
- A I and II only
- B II and III only
- C I and III only
- D I, II and III
Show answer
Why:
II and III are correct. I is not: middlemen bought in bulk at meagre prices and often left them worse off.
- A the cows would stop producing milk entirely
- B the products would not reach any shops at all
- C the factory would be unable to make butter
- D the cooperative would lose its member farmers
Show answer
Why:
Transport, trade and retail carry it the last mile.
- A Both true, and the reason explains the assertion
- B Both true, but the reason does not explain it
- C The assertion is true and the reason is false
- D The assertion is false and the reason is true
Show answer
Why:
The assertion is false and the reason is true. Milk spoils within the day, so the farmers had to sell at once and could not wait for a better price. That is how they came to depend on middlemen.
- A women, who gained control alongside the men
- B traders, who joined as ordinary members
- C officials, who supervised the decisions
- D buyers, who were given a share of profits
Show answer
Why:
Control over production and sale.
- A cooperatives always succeed once they are formed
- B milk is the most important product in India
- C no sector can finish the job on its own
- D farming is more valuable than manufacturing
Show answer
Why:
Which is why the chapter classified them at all.
Important short questions (6)
They walked or cycled to nearby villages in scorching heat to sell milk, which curdles fast. They had to sell quickly for very little money.
People who buy from producers and sell to consumers, charging for it. Here they bought milk in bulk at meagre prices, and farmers felt cheated and harassed.
A group who join of their own accord, formally, to meet needs both economic and social. The members own it and take decisions collectively.
The farmers went together to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who advised a cooperative. They took the advice, and AMUL was set up in 1946 under Tribhuvandas Patel and Dr Varghese Kurien.
Milking the cows is primary. Making butter, powder, ghee and cheese is secondary. Transport, trading and retail are tertiary.
Pulp is taken from trees, which is primary. Paper is made from the pulp and printed, which is secondary. Carrying and selling the books is tertiary.
Long answer questions (3)
In the early nineteen forties farmers in Anand sold milk to nearby villages. They had to walk or cycle there under a scorching sun, and milk curdles quickly in heat, so the selling had to be done fast, for very little. So they came to depend on middlemen. These bought milk in bulk at meagre prices and sold it in the market. The farmers often felt cheated and harassed. One day they went together to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and put their problems to him. His advice was to form a cooperative and stop depending on middlemen. They took it, and Anand Milk Union Limited began in 1946.
The farmers milk their cows and buffaloes and sell the milk to a nearby dairy. That is a primary activity, because the milk comes straight from a natural source. The milk is then processed and changed from a liquid into other forms, such as milk powder, ghee, cheese and butter, in factories. Those are secondary activities, because a material supplied by the first sector has had its form changed. The products are then carried by lorry and truck, and by railway, air and shipping. They reach retail stores and shops of every size, in villages as much as in cities, right across Gujarat and beyond it. Transport, trading and retail are all tertiary.
The chapter defines the sectors separately and then shows them on one product twice over. In Anand, milk is drawn from cows, which is primary; turned into butter and powder in a factory, which is secondary; and carried and sold through shops, which is tertiary. Remove any one stage and nothing reaches a kitchen. The same holds for a textbook: pulp comes from trees, paper is made and printed, and the books are carried to schools. The chapter says outright that none of it would have been possible without all three sectors working together. So the classification is not a filing exercise. It exists to make the dependence visible.
Flashcards (15)
Play this topic
- Match the pairs
- Which sector?
- Fact or myth?
- Complete it
- Quick fire
Class 6 Social Science Chapter 14 — frequently asked questions
Worth that can be counted in money. An activity that creates it is an economic activity, and those are what this chapter goes on to sort.
Because the number of activities people earn from has grown enormously. A list running from farming to drones and software cannot be understood whole.
A wide grouping of activities that resemble one another and together carry a country's prosperity. They are the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors.
Work in which people depend on what the primary sector has produced and change it into goods. Nature is reached at one remove.
Construction, such as buildings and roads. Utilities, such as water, electricity and gas. And manufacturing in factories and production units.
Grain milled into flour, groundnut pressed for oil, and wood turned into furniture or paper.
One that gives support to the people working in the primary and secondary sectors. It is defined by whom it helps rather than by what it makes.
Because carrying grain and vegetables from a farm to a factory or market supports others. Nothing is grown, and nothing changes form.
Technicians mend electronic items such as phones and televisions. Mechanics mend vehicles such as cars and tractors. Electricians keep the electricity supply running.
They walked or cycled to nearby villages in scorching heat to sell milk, which curdles fast. They had to sell quickly for very little money.
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