Read the given passage carefully and answer the following questions.
Trade is essentially the buying and selling of items produced elsewhere. All the services in retail and wholesale trading or commerce are specifically intended for profit. The towns and cities where all these works take place are known as trading centres.
The rise of trading from barter at the local level to money-exchange on an international scale has produced many centres and institutions, such as trading centres or collection and distribution points.
Trading centres may be divided into rural and urban marketing centres.
Rural marketing centres cater to nearby settlements. These are quasi-urban centres. They serve as trading centres of the most rudimentary type. Here, personal and professional services are not well-developed. These form local collecting and distributing centres. Most of these have mandis (wholesale markets) and also retailing areas. They are not urban centres per se but are significant centres for making available goods and services which are most frequently demanded by rural folk.
Periodic markets in rural areas are found where there are no regular markets and local periodic markets are organised at different temporal intervals. These may be weekly, bi-weekly markets where people from the surrounding areas meet their temporally accumulated demand. These markets are held on specified dates and move from one place to another. The shopkeepers, thus, remain busy all day while a large area is served by them.
Urban marketing centres have more widely specialised urban services. They provide ordinary goods and services as well as many of the specialised goods and services required by people. Urban centres, therefore, offer manufactured goods as well as many specialised developed markets, e.g. markets for labour, housing, semi-or finished products. Services of educational institutions and professionals such as teachers, lawyers, consultants, physicians, dentists and veterinary doctors are available.
Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of rural market centres?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → They are pure urban centres with specialisation in rural products.
The passage states: “Rural marketing centres cater to nearby settlements. These are quasi-urban centres.… They are not urban centres per se”
Quasi-urban means "partly urban": such a place has some features of a town but is not a full town.
Option (1) They are pure urban centres with specialisation in rural products. — Not a characteristic of rural market centres. This turns the passage around. Rural marketing centres are only quasi-urban, and they are not urban centres in themselves.
Option (2) They are most rudimentary type of trading centres. — A characteristic of rural market centres. They serve as trading centres of the most rudimentary type, that is, the simplest kind.
Option (3) Here professional and personal services are not well-developed. — A characteristic of rural market centres. Services of lawyers or doctors are found in urban centres instead.
Option (4) Most of these have mandis (wholesale markets). — A characteristic of rural market centres. Most rural marketing centres have mandis and also retailing areas.
Note: This passage is taken from the section ‘Trade and Commerce’ in the chapter ‘Tertiary and Quaternary Activities’ (Fundamentals of Human Geography), almost word for word.