A Guide to Reading Chronological & Technical Texts
Hello and welcome to your reading practice session. The passage you’re about to read traces the history of a technology. On your exam, you might get texts about history, science, or art that are organized chronologically. Mastering them requires a few key skills.
Here are some tips for navigating texts that describe a development over time:
- Build a Mental Timeline: As you read, look for dates, time periods, and transition words that signal sequence (e.g., “first,” “then,” “next,” “by the 1970s,” “following this”). Consciously arrange these events in order in your mind. This will help you answer questions about the timeline of development.
- Identify Key Innovations: In a story of evolution, there will be a few crucial breakthroughs. Pinpoint what these are and, most importantly, why they were important. What problem did they solve? What new possibility did they create?
- Focus on Cause and Effect: Each innovation causes a new effect. The transistor replaced the vacuum tube because it was smaller and more reliable. This led to the miniaturization of electronics. Actively look for these causal links.
- Don’t Get Bogged Down by Jargon: A technical history will have jargon. The passage will usually provide enough context for you to understand the significance of the term even if you don’t grasp the deep science. Focus on its role in the story.
- Time Yourself: Discipline is key for exam success. You should aim to read this passage and answer all 10 questions in 18-20 minutes. This practice will help you build the pace and focus needed for test day.
Today’s passage covers the evolution of modern electronics. Apply these strategies to track the story of innovation. Let’s start!
Reading Passage
[ppp_patron_only level=5]
The ubiquitous electronic devices that define modern life—smartphones, laptops, and GPS navigators—are the culmination of a technological evolution spanning less than a century. This rapid progression from room-sized machines to pocket-sized supercomputers is underpinned by a series of fundamental breakthroughs, each one building upon the last to make electronics progressively smaller, faster, cheaper, and more powerful. The journey begins with the replacement of a bulky and inefficient component: the vacuum tube.
In the first half of the 20th century, electronic devices relied on vacuum tubes to control and amplify electrical signals. These glass tubes, which glowed hot like light bulbs, were large, fragile, power-hungry, and prone to burning out. A complex machine like an early computer required thousands of them, resulting in a device that filled an entire room, consumed enormous amounts of electricity, and was perpetually in need of repair. The critical turning point came in 1947 at Bell Labs with the invention of the transistor. The transistor, a solid-state device made from semiconductor materials like silicon, performed the same function as a vacuum tube but was exponentially smaller, more durable, and more energy-efficient. This invention was the catalyst for the miniaturization of electronics, paving the way for portable radios and mainframe computers that, while still large by today’s standards, were a huge leap forward.
The next great leap was the integration of multiple electronic components into a single unit. In the 1950s, devices were still built by wiring individual transistors, resistors, and capacitors together by hand—a tedious and error-prone process. The solution was the integrated circuit (IC), independently invented by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce in the late 1950s. The IC, often called a microchip, embedded an entire electronic circuit, with all its components and their interconnections, onto a tiny piece of silicon. This innovation dramatically reduced the size and manufacturing cost of electronic circuits, while simultaneously increasing their speed and reliability. The IC led directly to the development of pocket calculators and, crucially, set the stage for the personal computer.
This trend of exponential improvement was famously codified by Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel. In 1965, he observed that the number of transistors that could be placed on an integrated circuit was doubling approximately every two years. This prediction, now known as Moore’s Law, became both a description of the pace of innovation and a self-fulfilling prophecy for the semiconductor industry, setting a target that engineers and designers strove to meet. For decades, Moore’s Law held true, driving an incredible surge in computing power. Microprocessors—entire computer processors on a single chip—became more and more powerful, enabling the personal computer revolution of the 1980s and 90s, the rise of the internet, and the mobile revolution of the 2000s.
Today, we are entering a new phase. While the pace of Moore’s Law has begun to slow as engineers approach the physical limits of silicon-based transistors, the evolution of electronics continues. The focus is shifting from simply cramming more transistors onto a chip to developing specialized processors for specific tasks, such as artificial intelligence and graphics rendering. Furthermore, the principles of miniaturization and integration have led to the Internet of Things (IoT), a vast network where everyday objects are embedded with microchips and sensors, allowing them to connect to the internet and communicate with each other. The evolution is no longer just about making a single device more powerful, but about creating an intelligent and interconnected ecosystem of countless devices, a trajectory that promises to reshape our world in ways we are only beginning to imagine.
Reading Quiz
[/ppp_patron_only]
Keywords & Phrases
Culmination:
What it means: The highest or final point of something, especially something you have been working towards. It’s the end result of a long process.
How it was used in the reading: The author uses this to say that today’s devices are the final product of a long history of technological development. “…the culmination of a technological evolution…”
Underpinned by:
What it means: This phrase means supported or forming the basis for something. If an argument is underpinned by certain facts, those facts are its foundation.
How it was used in the reading: This is used to say that the rapid progress in electronics is based on a few key inventions. “This rapid progression… is underpinned by a series of fundamental breakthroughs…”
Power-hungry:
What it means: This is an informal adjective used to describe a machine or device that uses a very large amount of electricity or fuel.
How it was used in the reading: The author uses this vivid term to describe one of the major disadvantages of old vacuum tubes. “…they were large, fragile, power-hungry, and prone to burning out.”
Exponentially:
What it means: An adverb describing a rate of increase that becomes more and more rapid over time. It’s not a steady, linear increase, but a dramatic, accelerating one.
How it was used in the reading: This word is used to emphasize the massive scale of improvement the transistor offered over the vacuum tube. “…but was exponentially smaller, more durable, and more energy-efficient.”
Catalyst for:
What it means: A ‘catalyst’ is a substance that causes a chemical reaction to happen faster. Metaphorically, a catalyst is an event or person that causes a great change or action.
How it was used in the reading: The author identifies the transistor as the key invention that sparked the trend of making electronics smaller. “This invention was the catalyst for the miniaturization of electronics…”
Tedious and error-prone:
What it means: ‘Tedious’ means long, slow, and dull. ‘Error-prone’ means likely to have mistakes. Together, the phrase describes a task that is boring and in which it is very easy to make mistakes.
How it was used in the reading: This phrase describes the old method of building circuits by hand, highlighting the problem that the integrated circuit solved. “…a tedious and error-prone process.”
Codified by:
What it means: To ‘codify’ something means to arrange it (like laws or rules) into a systematic code. In a broader sense, it means to express a trend or observation in a clear and systematic way.
How it was used in the reading: The author uses this to say that Gordon Moore didn’t invent the trend, but he was the one who observed it and expressed it as a clear principle or law. “This trend of exponential improvement was famously codified by Gordon Moore…”
Self-fulfilling prophecy:
What it means: This is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, due to the positive feedback between belief and behavior.
How it was used in the reading: This is used to explain the dual role of Moore’s Law: it didn’t just describe what was happening, it also motivated people to make it happen. “…became both a description of the pace of innovation and a self-fulfilling prophecy…”
Cramming more transistors onto a chip:
What it means: ‘To cram’ means to force something into a space that is too small. This phrase is a vivid, informal way of describing the process of fitting an increasing number of components into the same small area.
How it was used in the reading: This describes the primary goal of the semiconductor industry during the era of Moore’s Law. “The focus is shifting from simply cramming more transistors onto a chip to developing specialized processors…”
Trajectory:
What it means: This is the path followed by a projectile or a moving object. Metaphorically, it refers to the path of development or the direction something is heading in the future.
How it was used in the reading: The author uses this word to describe the future direction of electronics, which is moving towards interconnected ecosystems. “…a trajectory that promises to reshape our world…”
0 Comments