TEST-9

What Is a Port City?

A (Q.1 of 5) The letter can be used once only

A port must be distinguished from a harbor. They are two very different things. Most ports have poor harbors, and many fine harbors see few ships. Harbor is a physical concept, a shelter for ships; the port is an economic concept, a center of land-sea exchange which requires good access to a hinterland even more than a sea-linked foreland. It is landward access, which is productive of goods for export and which demands imports, that is critical. Poor harbors can be improved with breakwaters and dredging if there is a demand fora port. Madras and Colombo are examples of harbors expensively improved by enlarging, dredging and building breakwaters.

List of Headings

i A truly international environment

ii Once a port city, always a port city

iii Good ports make huge profits

iv How the port changes a city's infrastructure

v Reasons for the decline of ports

vi Relative significance of trade and service industry

vii Ports and harbours

viii The demands of the oil industry

Source: Cambridge IELTS Practice Book-2 Test-2