Important Questions and Answers on The Age of Industrialization Class10

This post contains all the important questions of Chapter 4 Class 10 History The Age of Industrialization. Students must prepare these questions thoroughly to score maximum from the chapter 'The Age of Industrialization.' These questions are hand-picked by CBSE Guidance keeping in view the past year's questions of CBSE Class 10 Board Exams question papers.

The Age of Industrialization Class 10 Important Questions with Answers

Q. No. 1) Fill in the blanks:

1. The Spinning Jenny was devised by _________.
2. The fly shuttle was used for __________.
3. Cotton piece good’s production in India doubled between _________.
4. __________ was known as a finishing center of the cloth at the time of proto-industrialization.
5. The term ‘Orient’ refers to _________.
6. The first cotton mill in Bombay was set up in ________.
7. _______ invented the steam engine in 1781 in England.
8. In the first phase of industrialization, the most dynamic industries in Britain were _________.
9. __________ was one product being used even by people who could not read.
10. Apart from images of Gods, figures of ___________ were commonly used in advertisements.
11. The three pre-colonial ports in India were _______.

Ans.

1. James Hargreaves
2. Weaving
3. 1900-1912
4. London
5. Asia
6. 1854
7. James Watt
8. Meals and Cotton
9. Calendar
10. personages, emperors, and nawabs.
11. Surat, Masulipatam and Hoogly.

Q. No. 2) Assertion-Reason-Based Questions

i. Assertion (A): The consolidation of East India Company power after the 1760s did not initially lead to a decline in textile exports from India.

Reason (R): British cotton industries had not yet expanded and Indian fine textiles were in great demand in Europe.

Options

(a) If both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of assertion.

(b) If both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of assertion.

(c) If A is true but R is false.

(d) If both R and R are false.

Ans. Option (a)

ii. Assertion (A): The cotton weavers of India flourished with the Manchester imports.

Reason (R): With the American Civil War, the cotton supplies from the US to Britain increased.

Options

(a) If both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of assertion.

(b) If both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of assertion.

(c) If A is true but R is false.

(d) If both R and R are false.

Ans. Option (d)

iii. Assertion (A): When Manchester industrialists began selling clothes in India, they put labels on the cloth bundles.

Reason (R): The label was a mark of Quality. When buyers saw “Made in Manchester” written in bold on the label, they were expected to feel confident about buying the cloth.

Options

(a) If both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of assertion.

(b) If both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of assertion.

(c) If A is true but R is false.

(d) If both R and R are false.

Ans. Option (a)

Q. No. 3) Multiple Choice Questions

i. Whom did the British government appoint to supervise weavers, collect supplies and examine the quality of cloth?

a. Jobber

b. Sepoy

c. Merchants

d. Gomastha

Ans. d. Gomastha

ii. From which of the following trade did the early businessman make a good fortune?

a. Textile

b. China

c. Tea

d. Opium

Ans. d. China

iii. Which innovation helped weavers to increase productivity?

a. Spinning Jenny

b. Wheel

c. Fly Shuttle

d. None of the above

Ans. c. Fly shuttle

iv. Where was the first cotton mill established?

a. Ahmedabad

b. Bombay

c. Madras

d. Kanpur

Ans. b. Bombay

v. Who said, “The demand for Indian textile could never reduce since no other nation produced goods of the same quality.”

a. Mathew Boulton

b. Newcomen

c. Henry Patullo

d. James Hargreaves

Ans. c. Henry Patullo

vi. In 1911, 67% of large industries were located in which one of the following places in India?

a. Bengal and Bombay

b. Surat and Ahmedabad

c. Delhi and Bombay

d. Patna and Lucknow

Ans. a. Bengal and Bombay

Q. No. 4) Give one reason why the export of Indian yarn to China declined in 1906.

Ans. Produce from the Chinese and Japanese mills flooded the Chinese market.

Q. No. 5) Why did merchants in Europe go to the countryside in the 17th century?

Ans. With the expansion of world trade and the acquisition of colonies in different parts of the world, the demand for goods began growing. But merchants faced problems in increasing production within towns as:

• The urban crafts and trade guilds were very powerful. These were associations of producers that trained craftspeople, maintained control over production, and regulated competition and prices.
• The entry of new European merchants into the trade was restricted.
• Rulers granted monopoly rights to the guilds to produce and trade specific products. It was therefore difficult for new merchants to set up business in towns.
• So they turned to the countryside.

Q. No. 6) What was proto-industrialization? “In eighteenth-century Europe, the peasants and artisans in the countryside readily agreed to work for the merchants.” Explain any three reasons.

Ans. Even before factories were built in England and Europe, there was large-scale industrial production for an international market. This was not based on factories. Historians refer to this phase of industrialization as proto-industrialization. (Proto-Industrialization: First/Early form of industrialization.)

Peasants and artisans agreed to work for the merchants because:

• This was a time when open fields were disappearing and commons were being enclosed. Cottagers and poor peasants who had earlier depended on common lands for their survival had to now look for alternative sources of income. Many of them had tiny plots of land which could not provide work for all members of the household.
• So when merchants came around and offered advances to produce goods for them, peasant households eagerly agreed.
• Now the peasants and artisans could remain in the countryside and continue to cultivate their small plots.
• Income from proto-industrial production supplemented their shrinking income from cultivation.
• It also allowed them a fuller use of their family labor resources.

Q. No. 7) Describe the pace of the spread of the Industrial Revolution in England.

Ans.

• The cotton and metal industries grew at a dynamic pace. With the expansion of the railway in England demand for iron and steel increased.
• But the new industries could not easily displace traditional industries. Even at the end of the 19th century, less than 20% of the workforce was employed in technologically advanced industries.
• Ordinary and small innovations were done in non-mechanized sectors like food processing, building, pottery, etc.
• Technological changes were slow to occur as industrialists feared using machines. The repair of machines was costly and was not as effective as claimed.

Q. No. 8) Observe the two images given below and answer the questions that follow.

i. Identify one similarity between the images given.

ii. How did James Watt contribute to the activity seen in image-2?

iii. Analyze the effect on the labor force in the cotton industry due to James Watt’s contribution.

Ans. i. Both are used in the cotton textile industry.

ii. He contributed by improving the steam engine which was used to operate rotary machines.

iii. The increased use of steam-powered machines reduced

• the need for manual labor, and
• the time taken to produce goods.

Q. No. 9) How did the seasonality of employment affect the lives of workers in Victorian Britain? Explain.

Ans.

• Gas work and breweries had seasonal demands of labor in the cold months. Book-binders and printers, catering to Christmas demand, needed labor before December. At the waterfront, winter was the time that ships were repaired and cleaned. Due to the fluctuation of production with the season in these industries, hand labor was preferred and was employed for the season only.
• Seasonality of work in many industries meant prolonged periods without work.
• After the busy season was over, the poor were on the streets again.
• Some returned to the countryside after the winter, when the demand for labor in the rural areas opened up in places.
• But many looked for odd jobs, which till the mid-19th century were difficult to find.

Q. No. 10) Describe the condition of workers in England during the early years of the Industrial Revolution.

Ans. The conditions of workers in England during the early years of the Industrial Revolution:

• When the news of possible jobs spread to the countryside, hundreds came to the cities.
• The seasonality of jobs meant that after the busy season was over, the poor were on the streets again.
• Wages increased in the early 19th century but it did little to help the workers as prices increased at a faster pace. The real value of what the workers earned fell significantly.
• The income of the workers did not depend on the wage rate alone. There were long periods of unemployment. The number of days of work determined the average income of workers.
• The fear of unemployment made workers hostile to the new technology. When Spinning Jenny was introduced in the woolen industry, women began attacking the new machines.

Q. No. 11) What led to the decline of old port cities and the rise of Bombay and Calcutta in colonial India? Explain.

Ans.

• Before the machine age the Indian textile industry, especially cotton and silk goods, dominated the international market.
• Indian merchants and bankers were involved in the export trade of textiles. Later arrival of European traders like the East India Company broke down the network of exports controlled by Indian merchants.
• The European companies gradually gained power – first securing a variety of concessions from local courts, then the monopoly rights to trade.
• Exports from old ports fell dramatically
• The credit that had financed the earlier trade began drying up
• The local bankers slowly went bankrupt.

Q. No. 12) Why was it difficult for East India Company to produce regular supplies of goods for export in the beginning? Explain.

Ans.

• The French, Dutch, and Portuguese, as well as local traders, competed in the market to secure the woven cloth.
• So the weaver and supply merchants could bargain and try selling the produce to the best buyer.
• The East India Company did not have any exclusive trading rights or monopoly over trade in India.

Q. No. 13) Who were gomasthas? Why did the East India Company appoint gomasthas? Give three reasons.

Ans. Gomastha was a paid servant appointed by the East India Company to supervise weavers, collect supplies, and examine the quality of cloth.

Three reasons to appoint gomastha:

• Earlier the East India Company found it difficult to ensure a regular supply of goods for export. But after establishing political power and the monopoly right to trade, Britain developed systems to control and eliminate the competition.
• The company took direct control over the weavers through gomasthas.
• The company also prevented the weavers from supplying the cloth to any other buyer. This was done through the system of advances. The weavers were given loans to buy the raw materials and were made bound to supply the products to the gomasthas only.

Q. No. 14) Explain three reasons for the clashes between the weavers and the gomasthas.

Ans. Reasons for the clashes between the weavers and the gomasthas:

• Earlier the weavers dealt with the supply merchants who lived within the weaving villages and had a close link with the weavers whereas the gomasthas were outsiders who had no social link with the weavers.
• The supply merchants were looking after the needs of the weavers whereas the gomasthas acted arrogantly and often beat them for the delay in supply.
• Due to the new system of gomastha the weavers lost the space to bargain, and could not sell to other buyers, the price for the cloth received from the company was very low and the loans they received from the company tied them with the company itself.

Q. No. 15) Describe any three major problems faced by Indian weavers in the nineteenth century.

Ans. The major problems faced by Indian weavers in the nineteenth century were:

• Their export market collapsed and the local market shrunk. Produced by machines at lower costs, the imported cotton goods were so cheap that weavers could not easily compete with them.
• By the 1860s, weavers faced a new problem. They could not get a sufficient supply of raw cotton of good quality. As American Civil War broke out, raw cotton exports from India increased to Britain.
• By the end of the 19th century, factories in India began production, flooding the market with machine goods. Now the weavers faced competition from Indian factories.

Q. No. 16) How did industries develop in India in the second half of the nineteenth century? Explain.

Or,

Describe the contributions of the early industrialists of India in shaping the industrial development of India.

Ans.

• From the late 18th century, 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.
• In Bengal, Dwarkanath Tagore made his fortune in the China trade and set up six joint-stock companies in the 1830s and 1840s.
• In Bombay, Parsis like Dinshaw Petit and Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata built huge industrial empires in India.
• Seth Hukumchand, a Marwari businessman set up the first Indian jute mill in Calcutta in 1917.
• These early entrepreneurs had accumulated wealth from trade with China, the merchants of Madras accumulated wealth from trade with Burma and the others from trade with the Middle East and east Africa.
• There was another group of entrepreneurs who had accumulated wealth from trade within India, supplying goods from one place to another, banking money, transferring funds between cities, and financing traders.

Q. No. 17) Who were the jobbers? Explain their main functions.

Ans. Jobbers were the paid workers of the industrialists. They were old and most trusted workers.

The main functions of jobbers were:

• Jobbers got the people from villages, ensured their jobs, and helped them to settle in the city.
• They often helped the workers by providing them with money in times of crisis.

Q. No. 18) Give a reason why the export of Indian yarn to China declined in 1906.

Ans. From 1906, the export of Indian yarn to China declined since produce from Chinese and Japanese mills flooded the Chinese market.

Q. No. 19) Why did industrial production in India increase during the First World War?

Or,

Why could Manchester never recapture its old position in the Indian market after the First World War? Explain.

Ans. Till the First World War, industrial growth in India was slow. The war created a dramatically new situation.

• With British mills busy with war production to meet the needs of the army, Manchester imports into India declined.
• Suddenly, Indian mills had a vast home market to supply.
• As the war prolonged, Indian factories were called upon to supply war needs: jute bags, cloth for army uniforms, tents, etc.
• New factories were set up and old ones ran multiple shifts. Over the war years, industrial production boomed.
• After the war, Manchester could never recapture its old position in the Indian market.

Q. No. 20) “Small-scale production continued to predominate in India.” Why?

Ans.

• Handicraft people adopted new technologies that improved production.
• By the second decade of the 20th century, weavers were using looms with a fly shuttle. Productivity per worker increased which speeded up production and reduced labor demand.
• Certain groups of weavers who produced fine cloth were in better condition than weavers of coarse cloth.

Q. No. 21) What were the methods used by the British manufacturers to expand their market in India?

Or,

Explain any 5 ways by which new markets and consumers were created in India by British manufacturers.

Ans. The methods used by the British manufacturers to expand their market in India were:

• Advertisements made a product appear desirable, and necessary and created new needs.
• When Manchester industrialists began selling cloth in India, they put “Made in Manchester” labels on cloth bundles to signify good quality.
• The labels also had images of gods and goddesses, which showed that the products being sold had divine approval from the gods.
• In the late 19th century manufacturers started printing calendars. They were hung in the houses of the poor, tea shops, and offices.
• Figures of important personages like emperors and nawabs were also used in advertisements and calendars to sell products.

Q. No. 22) Explain the role of calendars in creating new consumers for British products.

Ans. The role of calendars in creating new consumers for British products was:

• Unlike newspapers and magazines, calendars could be used even by people who could not read.
• They were hung in tea shops and in poor people’s homes just as much as in offices and middle-class apartments.
• Those who hung the calendars would see them throughout the year.
• Figures of gods and goddesses were also used in calendars to advertise the product.

Must Also See: History Chapter 1: The Rise of Nationalism in Europe Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 2: Nationalism in India Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 3: The Making of a Global World Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 4: The Age of Industrialization Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 5: Print Culture and the Modern World Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Geography Chapter 1: Resources and Development Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 2: Forest and Wildlife Resources Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 3: Water Resources Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 4: Agriculture Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 5: Minerals and Energy Resources Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 6: Manufacturing Industries Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 7: Lifelines of National Economy Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Civics Chapter 1: Power-Sharing Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 2: Federalism Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 4: Gender, Religion, and Caste Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 6: Political Parties Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 7: Outcomes of Democracy Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Economics Chapter 1: Development Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 2: Sectors of the Indian Economy Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 3: Money and Credit Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Chapter 4: Globalization and the Indian Economy Class 10 Important Questions and Answers Map Works for Class 10 Social Science

Watch Detailed Explanation of The Age of Industrialization Class 10 Social Studies Chapter 4:

Hope you these questions were helpful for you in preparing for your exams. Please share this with your friends and do comment if you have any doubts/suggestions in the comment section below.