NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 13 End-of-chapter exercise — Questions, activities and projects

Book page 193 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

How are economic activities different from non-economic activities?

Answer

They differ in one thing only — whether money or money’s worth is exchanged. Everything else follows from that.

Economic activities “are those that involve money or are performed in exchange for money or money’s worth for the parties involved.” (page 185)
Non-economic activities “are those that do not generate income or wealth but are done out of feelings like gratitude, love, care and respect.” (page 186)

Basis of difference	Economic activities	Non-economic activities
1. Money	Money or money’s worth is exchanged	No money is exchanged
2. Motive	To earn an income; to produce goods and services for others	Gratitude, love, care, respect, a wish to serve
3. Income or wealth	Generates income and wealth for the doer	Generates none
4. Form of payment	Salary, wage, fee, payment in kind — or profit for a business	No payment; the return is satisfaction and gratitude
5. Who it is usually for	Customers, employers, clients — usually people outside the family	The family, the neighbourhood, the community, the nation
6. Value addition	Adds value at each stage — ₹600 wood becomes a ₹1,000 chair	Adds value to life, but not value that is priced in rupees
7. Examples	A business person selling school bags; a farmer selling produce; a lawyer earning a fee; a truck driver; car factory workers; Geeta Aunty the Air Force pilot; Kavya’s aunt at the post office; Sahil the farm labourer	Parents cooking for the family; helping children with schoolwork; youth caring for grandparents; a family renovating its house; grandfather’s free Geography classes; the stitching group; sevā and langar; Swachh Bharat Abhiyan; Van Mahotsav

The one thing that is not a difference: importance. Both kinds of work are needed and both deserve equal respect. The same activity can move from one column to the other simply because of how it is arranged — cooking at home is non-economic; the same cooking in a restaurant is economic. If the difference were about how valuable the work is, that switch would make no sense.

Exam tip: answer this in a table with 4–6 bases of difference, and end with one sentence saying that the difference is about payment and not about the worth of the work. That last sentence is what separates a full-marks answer from an ordinary one.

Q2.

What kind of economic activities do people engage in? Illustrate with examples.

Answer

People earn a living in four broad ways, and this chapter gives a real person for each one.

Kind of economic activity	What the person does	Examples from the chapter	How they are paid
1. Growing things (from land and nature)	Produces food and raw material from the soil	The farmer selling produce in the market; Sahil, the farm labourer tilling land with a tractor; the mango orchard	Sale of the harvest; a daily wage, part cash and part payment in kind
2. Making things	Turns raw material into a finished, more useful product — this is where value addition is clearest	Rajesh the carpenter making a chair from ₹600 of wood; workers employed in a car manufacturing factory	Profit on each item sold; a monthly salary or a wage for factory workers
3. Buying and selling (trade)	Brings goods from where they are made to where they are needed	The business person selling school bags; Anu’s parents’ shop for uniforms and ready-made garments	Profit — the money left after paying for the goods, the shop and the staff
4. Providing services	Sells skill, care, safety or convenience rather than a physical object	Geeta Aunty, Air Force pilot; the lawyer arguing a case; the truck driver; Rohan, software engineer; Kavya’s uncle, bulldozer technician; Kavya’s aunt at the post office and in her evening online classes; doctors, teachers, bankers	Salary for employees; a fee for each service by a professional

Watch one family cover three of the four. Kavya’s aunt draws a salary at the village post office and charges a weekly fee for online classes; Kavya’s uncle draws a salary as a construction technician; Kavya’s father Rajesh makes and sells furniture. One household, three kinds of economic activity, three ways of being paid.

Did you know? Beyond this chapter, economists give these four groups formal names. Growing things is the primary sector; making things is the secondary sector; and trade and services together form the tertiary sector. You will meet these terms in a higher class — the ideas are already here in this chapter, only without the labels.

Why every one of the four is needed: a farmer’s cotton is of no use without a mill to spin it, a tailor to stitch it, a truck to carry it and a shop to sell it. Cut any one link and the rest of the chain stops. No kind of economic activity is superior to another — each one exists because the others need it.

Q3.

There is great value attached to people who are engaged in community service activities. Comment on this statement.

Answer

The statement is true, and the chapter shows exactly why. People engaged in community service earn nothing at all, so by the definition on page 186 their work is non-economic. Yet page 191 begins the section on it with the sentence that answers this question: “While non-economic activities may not involve money, the value they generate is important in our lives.”

Five reasons why great value attaches to such people

They serve without expecting anything back. Page 192 says these practices are “a way of contributing to society without expecting anything in return”. That is sevā, and it is one of the oldest ideas in Indian life. The langar or community kitchen at a gurudwara “serve[s] food to every visitor for free” — every visitor, without asking who they are.
They do work that money cannot get done. No municipality has enough staff to keep every lane clean. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan works because ordinary citizens do it themselves, and “together, these efforts lead to a clean home, neighbourhood, society and nation”.
They reach people that nothing else reaches. A grandfather’s free Geography class, a voluntary group teaching stitching to the women of a community, Rohan’s weekend computer classes at the youth development programme — each gives a skill to someone who might not otherwise get it. A skill given free today becomes somebody’s livelihood tomorrow.
They think beyond their own lifetime. Van Mahotsav, “the festival of forests”, brings people together for tree plantation drives to spread awareness of “the value of trees and the conservation of forests”. Whoever plants a tree at a Van Mahotsav will probably never sit in its shade.
They set an example that spreads. One family that segregates its waste changes a lane; one clean lane changes a colony. Community service multiplies in a way that a paid job usually cannot.

The deeper point: a society is held together by two different things — exchange, where I give you something because you pay me, and service, where I give you something because you need it. Money handles the first. Only people like these handle the second. That is why the chapter asks you to attach value to them — not as a courtesy, but because a society without them genuinely does not work.

Give an example from your own life: a good answer to this question names one real person — a neighbour who teaches free, an uncle who organises the blood donation camp, the group that cleans the pond every summer — and says what would be missing if they stopped. That single concrete example is worth more than a page of general praise.

Q4.

What are the various ways in which people are compensated for various economic activities? Give some examples.

Answer

The chapter names four ways, each with its own margin definition, and there is a fifth for people who work for themselves.

Way of being paid	The chapter’s definition	When it is paid	Examples
Salary	“A fixed regular payment generally paid monthly by an employer to an employee” (page 187)	The same amount every month, whatever the day’s work happened to be	Geeta Aunty, Air Force pilot; Rohan, software engineer; Kavya’s uncle, construction technician; Kavya’s aunt at the village post office; teachers, bank staff, nurses
Wage	“A payment made by the employer to the worker for a specific period of time” (page 189)	By the day or by the hour, usually paid at the end of that period	Sahil, the farm labourer, “earns a daily wage for his efforts”; masons, helpers and loaders on a building site
Fee	“A payment made to a person or organisation in exchange for professional advice or services” (page 185)	Once for each service given	The lawyer “arguing a case and earning a fee”; a doctor’s consultation fee; Kavya’s aunt’s weekly fee for her online exam-preparation classes
Payment in kind	“A non-cash payment that is received for the work performed” (page 189)	Along with, or instead of, cash	Sahil receives part of his payment “in the form of mangoes of equal value”; farm workers paid partly in grain; a job that includes free housing or meals
Profit (for the self-employed)	Not defined in the chapter, but shown in it — what is left after paying for materials and costs	Whenever a sale is made; it varies from week to week	Rajesh the carpenter: ₹1,000 − ₹600 of wood − the cost of tools and materials; Anu’s parents’ garment shop; the school-bag seller; the farmer selling his own harvest

Why the way of paying is chosen: it fits the way the work is arranged. Regular, continuous work with one employer suits a salary — you are paid for your time being available. Work that comes only on some days suits a wage — you are paid for the days you actually work. A skill used once for one person suits a fee. A payment in kind makes sense where there is plenty of a good product and less cash — which is why it is common in farming, and why Sahil goes home with mangoes “of equal value”. And someone who works for themselves is paid last of all, out of what remains: that is profit.

Careful — the exam’s favourite confusion: salary is fixed and generally monthly; wage is for a specific period of time such as a day or an hour. A shop assistant paid ₹12,000 on the first of every month earns a salary. A helper paid ₹500 at the end of each day he comes earns a wage. Same shop, two different words.

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