OxfordAQA International GCSE History (9245): Paper 2 Section B, Technology or Medicine and Change — Revision Notes

These notes condense Section B of OxfordAQA International GCSE History (9245) Paper 2: the thematic study of Technology and change or Medicine and change, c800 to the present. Each option is summarised as a “people and developments” table for its six periods, followed by the factors that drive change – the key to questions 3 and 4. Full explanations: Thematic studies study guide. Practice: Thematic studies practice questions.

Syllabus coverage

OXFORDAQA 9245, VERSION 1.1 – 3.2.2 SECTION B – choose one: Technology and change, c800-present day; Medicine and change, c800-present day. Each has six periods. Questions: 3, 6, 9 and 12 marks (30 in total).

Technology and change: people and developments

Period	Key people	Key developments
Islamic Golden Age, c800-c1200	Banu Musa; Al-Jazari; Jabir ibn Hayyan; Al-Razi; Hunayn ibn Ishaq; Gerard of Cremona	Astrolabe; irrigation; automata and clocks; House of Wisdom; translation to Latin
Printing Revolution, c1440-c1800	Johannes Gutenberg	Earlier printing in China and Korea; metal-type press; vernacular books; Reformation; literacy
Steam Power, c1710-c1900	Thomas Newcomen; James Watt; Richard Trevithick; Mary Walton	Mine pumps (1712); separate condenser (1769); high-pressure locomotive (1804); pollution reduction
Communications, 1830-1950	Samuel Morse; Alexander Graham Bell; Guglielmo Marconi	Telegraph (1844 line); telephone (1876); radio (1901 transatlantic); film; office machines
The Automobile, c1880-present	Henry Ford	Internal combustion engine; assembly line (1913); oil trade; roads; electric cars
Computing and the internet, 1830s-present	Babbage; Ada Lovelace; Boole; Hollerith; Turing; Grace Hopper; Tim Berners-Lee	Analytical Engine; punched cards; transistors and chips; Alto, Macintosh, Windows; Web; AI

Medicine and change: people and developments

Period	Key people	Key developments
Medieval Islamic medicine	Al-Razi; Ibn Sina; Al-Zahrawi; Al-Baytar; Al-Kindi	Translation Movement; bimaristans; surgical tools; pharmacology; sanitation
Epidemics, c800-c1800		Leprosy; smallpox; cocoliztli; Persian plague; Black Death (1340s); miasma theory; quarantine
19th-century advances	Jenner; Snow; Pasteur; Koch; Lister; Nightingale; Seacole; Blackwell; Jex-Blake	Vaccination (1796); cholera and water (1854); germ theory; antiseptics (1867); women in medicine
20th-century fight against disease	Ehrlich; Domagk; Fleming; Florey and Chain; Cori; Elion; Apgar; Hodgkin	Magic bullets; penicillin (1928, developed from 1940); pharmaceutical industry; antibiotic resistance; national health systems
Modern medical revolution, c1880-present	Marie Curie; Harvey Cushing; Henrietta Lacks; Rosalind Franklin	X-rays; safer anaesthesia; transfusion; transplants; HeLa cells; DNA; keyhole and robotic surgery
Global public health, 1850-present		WHO (1948); smallpox eradication (1980); polio, malaria, HIV/AIDS, Ebola; COVID-19; health equity

Factors that drive change (use in questions 3 and 4)

Factor	Technology example	Medicine example
Individuals	Watt’s condenser	Pasteur’s germ theory
Science and technology	Transistors making computers small	Microscopes; X-rays
War	Turing’s codebreaking	Mass-produced penicillin in the Second World War
Government	Regulation of radio and cars	Public health laws; the WHO
Communication	Printing spreading ideas	Translation Movement; journals
Religion and beliefs	Reformation pamphlets	Religious explanations of plague
Economy and trade	Oil and the car industry	Pharmaceutical companies

Turning points to argue about

• Technology: the House of Wisdom’s translations (knowledge preserved and passed to Europe); Gutenberg’s press (ideas spread faster than ever before); Watt’s condenser (power no longer tied to rivers); the telegraph (communication faster than transport); the assembly line (mass ownership of machines); the Web (global, instant information).
• Medicine: the Translation Movement (Greek medicine preserved and extended); the Black Death (old explanations failed); germ theory in the 1860s (the biggest change in ideas about cause); penicillin (the first widely effective antibiotic); X-rays and transplants (seeing and replacing parts of the body); the WHO (disease tackled globally).

For each turning point, be ready to say what changed, why it happened then, and who it affected. A strong question 4 answer often compares two turning points from different periods.

Change and continuity in one line per option

• Technology: inventions became faster to spread and more global, but every period built on earlier knowledge – from Greek texts in Baghdad to Babbage’s ideas in the computers of the twentieth century.
• Medicine: ideas about cause moved from imbalance, miasma and religion to germs and genes, while practical public health measures such as clean water and quarantine recur across the whole period.

Worked example: question 4 structure

“War was the most important factor in the development of medicine in the 20th century.” How far do you agree? [12]

• War: penicillin mass-produced in the USA for the armed forces; blood storage and transfusion; national health systems influenced by war.
• Other factor – science and individuals: Fleming’s discovery (1928) and Florey and Chain’s research came before or apart from war needs; Hodgkin’s work on molecular structure.
• Other factor – government and industry: pharmaceutical companies, national health systems.
• Judgement: war speeded up development, but science and individuals made the discoveries.

Exam traps

• Listing names without the change they caused.
• Using only European examples – the specification is global.
• Mixing up periods (for example, putting Lister in the twentieth century).
• In question 4, not explaining the “other” factor in enough depth.

Frequently asked questions

How do I revise six periods? Learn each period’s two or three key individuals, their contribution and one consequence.

Is continuity examined? Questions focus on cause, consequence and change; showing what stayed the same can strengthen a judgement.

Self-test

1. Who designed the separate condenser? James Watt.
2. What was the House of Wisdom? A centre of learning in Baghdad where ancient texts were translated.
3. Who linked cholera to a water pump? John Snow, 1854.
4. Who wrote early programs for Babbage’s Analytical Engine? Ada Lovelace.
5. When was the WHO founded? 1948.

Official specification

OxfordAQA International GCSE History (9245) specification, Version 1.1, sections 3.2.2 and 4.4.2 – oxfordaqa.com.