Social Sciences and History / Unit 12 SSH 1124 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Renewable, Nonrenewable, Proven and Potential: Classifying a Resource
The idea
The exam names a resource and asks its kind, and the anchor's environment chapter defines the set. A nonrenewable resource is in finite supply and is depleted by use; fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas, derived from ancient plant and animal matter, are the type. A renewable resource is in effectively infinite supply, solar and wind energy the anchor's examples; biofuels come from living matter. Proven reserves are deposits that can be recovered with some certainty, the section text's definition, since the glossary's entry for the term is the nation-state definition pasted in error, an anchor error the course declares. Potential reserves are estimates of deposits thought to exist but not fully verified. Production is the extraction of fossil fuels from the ground.
In practice
Given "coal", nonrenewable, a fossil fuel. Given "wind", renewable. Given "ethanol from corn", a biofuel, renewable by source. Given "oil in a field already drilled and measured", proven reserves. Given "oil a survey suggests lies under a basin", potential reserves. Ask whether use depletes it, and, for a deposit, whether it has been verified.
Where people slip
The trap is the glossary: a student who memorizes its proven-reserves line learns a definition of the nation-state. The second trap is treating renewable as clean by definition; the anchor's key term speaks of supply, not pollution.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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