Technology After 1900
| English | Chinese | Pinyin |
|---|---|---|
| The Green Revolution | 绿色革命 | lǜ sè gé mìng |
Distance became a smaller problem
- New modes of communication — including radio communication, cellular communication and the internet — as well as transportation, including air travel and shipping containers, reduced the problem of geographic distance.
- The CED's phrase is reduced the problem, not abolished it — distance still costs money and time.
- Shipping containers are the item students overlook: a standard box that moves between ship, rail and truck without unpacking.
Select all the technologies the CED says reduced the problem of distance.
Antibiotics belong to the medical bullet.
Energy raised what could be made
- Energy technologies, including the use of petroleum and nuclear power, raised productivity and increased the production of material goods.
- This is unit 5's fossil-fuel revolution continued, with a new source added.
- So the twentieth century's abundance rests on the same mechanism as the nineteenth's: more energy per person.
The CED says these technologies...
Shipping still takes weeks; bandwidth and air freight cost money.
Food kept up with population
- The Green Revolution 绿色革命 and commercial agriculture increased productivity and sustained the earth's growing population as it spread chemically and genetically modified forms of agriculture.
- The CED puts the achievement and the method in one sentence: a growing population was fed, and it was fed by chemical and genetic modification.
- Both halves are examinable, and neither is a judgement.
Which effect does this technology have?
Sort each technology by the effect the CED names.
The ____ Revolution and commercial agriculture sustained the earth's growing population.
It spread chemically and genetically modified forms of agriculture.
The CED says technology reduced the problem of geographic distance, not that it removed it. Shipping still takes weeks, and bandwidth and air freight cost money — so an answer claiming distance stopped mattering states more than the CED does.
Select both demographic effects the CED names.
Together they reshape a population's age structure.
Medicine lengthened lives
- Medical innovations, including vaccines and antibiotics, increased the ability of humans to survive and live longer lives.
- More effective forms of birth control gave women greater control over fertility, transformed reproductive practices, and contributed to declining rates of fertility in much of the world.
- Longer lives and fewer births together reshape a population's age structure — which is the demographic fact behind much of unit 9.
Match each technology to the effect the CED names.
Naming the effect rather than the device turns a list into an answer.
Five technologies, five effects
- Communication and transport → distance. Energy → productivity. Agriculture → population sustained.
- Medicine → longevity. Birth control → fertility and reproductive practice.
- Naming the effect rather than the device is what turns a list into an answer.
A shipping container is a box of agreed dimensions with corner fittings. It is not an invention about the sea; it is an agreement that lets the same box move from a factory to a ship to a train without being opened. The technology is a standard, and the standard is what reduced the cost of distance.
Radio, cellular communication, the internet, air travel and shipping containers reduced the problem of geographic distance. Petroleum and nuclear power raised productivity. The Green Revolution and commercial agriculture sustained a growing population through chemical and genetic modification. Vaccines and antibiotics lengthened lives, and more effective birth control gave women greater control over fertility.