The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
The history of any major technological or industrial advance is inevitably shadowed by a less predictable history of unintended consequences and secondary effects — what economists sometimes call “externalities.” Sometimes those consequences are innocuous ones, or even beneficial. Gutenberg invents the printing press, and literacy rates rise, which causes a significant part of the reading public to require spectacles for the first time, which creates a surge of investment in lens-making across Europe, which leads to the invention of the telescope and the microscope.
Oftentimes the secondary effects seem to belong to an entirely different sphere of society. When Willis Carrier hit upon the idea of air-conditioning, the technology was primarily intended for industrial use: ensuring cool, dry air for factories that required low-humidity environments. But…it touched off one of the largest migrations in the history of the United States, enabling the rise of metropolitan areas like Phoenix and Las Vegas that barely existed when Carrier first started tinkering with the idea in the early 1900s.
Sometimes the unintended consequence comes about when consumers use an invention in a surprising way. Edison famously thought his phonograph, which he sometimes called “the talking machine,” would primarily be used to take dictation….But then later innovators… discovered a much larger audience willing to pay for musical recordings made on descendants of Edison’s original invention. In other cases, the original innovation comes into the world disguised as a plaything…the way the animatronic dolls of the mid-1700s inspired Jacquard to invent the first “programmable” loom and Charles Babbage to invent the first machine that fit the modern definition of a computer, setting the stage for the revolution in programmable technology that would transform the 21st century in countless ways.
We live under the gathering storm of modern history’s most momentous unintended consequence….carbon-based climate change. Imagine the vast sweep of inventors whose ideas started the Industrial Revolution, all the entrepreneurs and scientists and hobbyists who had a hand in bringing it about. Line up a thousand of them and ask them all what they had been hoping to do with their work. Not one would say that their intent had been to deposit enough carbon in the atmosphere to create a greenhouse effect that trapped heat at the surface of the planet. And yet here we are.
Ethyl (leaded fuel) and Freon belonged to the same general class of secondary effect: innovations whose unintended consequences stem from some kind of waste by-product that they emit. But the potential health threats of Ethyl (unleaded fuel) were visible in the 1920s, unlike, say, the long-term effects of atmospheric carbon build up in the early days of the Industrial Revolution….
Indeed, it is reasonable to see CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) as a forerunner of the kind of threat we will most likely face in the coming decades, as it becomes increasingly possible for individuals or small groups to create new scientific advances — through chemistry or biotechnology or materials science — setting off unintended consequences that reverberate on a global scale.
While technological advances in the past have had innocuous or beneficial outcomes, more recent advances have the potential to be more threatening globally.
The question asks for the one view the author would not support.
The last paragraph says it is becoming increasingly possible for individuals or small groups to create advances with global consequences, which supports the view that this is far easier today than earlier.
The author notes that the health threats of Ethyl were visible as early as the 1920s, which supports the view that its emissions ought to have been addressed sooner; the passage also traces Ethyl's harm to the waste by-product it emits rather than to its use as such.
The author does not divide history into harmless past advances and dangerous recent ones: the most momentous unintended consequence, carbon-based climate change, came from the inventions of the Industrial Revolution. So the author would not support this contrast.
Hence, While technological advances in the past have had innocuous or beneficial outcomes, more recent advances have the potential to be more threatening globally.
these inventors could not have visualised the eventual impact of their inventions on society.
Carrier designed air-conditioning for factories, yet it set off a large migration; Edison expected the phonograph to take dictation, yet it became a medium for recorded music; Babbage's work traces back to animatronic dolls and led to modern computing.
In each case the inventor's intention and the eventual social impact are far apart, which is the author's point about unintended consequences.
The examples do not claim that such effects were mostly beneficial, that they mainly produced new inventions, or that inventions typically serve entirely different purposes.
Hence, these inventors could not have visualised the eventual impact of their inventions on society.
cooling and de-humidifying of factories through air-conditioning
An externality, as the author uses the word, is an unintended consequence or secondary effect of an advance.
Musical recordings were a use of the phonograph that Edison did not intend, the build-up of chlorofluorocarbons is a waste by-product, and the Jacquard loom fed the later revolution in programmable technology; all three are presented as secondary effects.
Cooling and drying the air in factories was the very purpose for which air-conditioning was designed. The externality the author links to it is the large migration that followed, not the cooling itself.
Hence, cooling and de-humidifying of factories through air-conditioning.
The full impact of technological advances cannot be estimated in the short run as the ripple effects often extend far beyond the original intent.
The first paragraph says every major advance is shadowed by a less predictable history of unintended consequences and secondary effects.
Its example is a chain: the printing press raises literacy, which creates demand for spectacles, which spurs lens-making, which leads to the telescope and the microscope.
The point is that the effects of an advance ripple far beyond its original purpose, so its full impact cannot be judged at the start.
The paragraph does not prescribe how inventions should be evaluated, and it does not claim that most secondary effects have been beneficial.
Hence, The full impact of technological advances cannot be estimated in the short run as the ripple effects often extend far beyond the original intent.
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Identify the odd sentence out and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
The last paragraph of the passage refers to “middle-class, white, professional men”. Which one of the following qualities best describes the connection among them?
Study the following sets of concepts and identify the set that is conceptually closest to the concerns and arguments of the passage.
According to the passage, who or what was an “alienist”?
“Conversely, when a defendant struck officials as unlike themselves, whether by dint of disease, gender, confession, or race, the precariousness of judgments about mental state was exposed.” Which one of the following best describes the use of the word “confession” in this sentence?
According to the incentive or moral hazard argument, which one of the designs below is most consistent with the claim that some inequality can raise growth?
Which one of the options below best summarises the passage?
The primary function of the three-part case for a positive income inequality–economic growth link in the first half of the passage is to show that:
The passage refers to "democratization". Choose the one option below that comes closest to the opposite of this process.
Important Questions from Non Grammar
- In formulating Principle VI (a), the ILC clarified the term "waging of a war of aggression" because:
- The author attributes the growing public frustration with the UN primarily to which pair of continuous failures?
- A primary point of divergence between the US Conservative position and the Secretary-General's Conservative position on security matters, according to the summary is:
- According to the critique's conclusion, the immediate, insurmountable barrier preventing the implementation of any reform, major or minor, is:
- The Secretary-General's 'Agenda for Peace' proposed a specific military capability intended to address the gap between traditional peace-keeping and full military action. This proposed unit was explicitly characterized by the summary as being:
