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

Section B of OxfordAQA International GCSE History (9245) Paper 2 is a thematic study of change over more than a thousand years: either Technology and change or Medicine and change, c800 to the present day. Each option is built from six significant periods, from the Islamic Golden Age to the present, and asks how people’s ideas, inventions and work changed lives around the world. Questions test knowledge, explanation of change and causation, and judgement across long periods.

Where this fits in 9245

Paper 2, Studies in change, is 1 hour 45 minutes and 60 marks (50% of the qualification); Section B is worth 30 marks. You study one thematic option. First exams are in May/June 2028. Related pages: Thematic studies revision notes, Thematic studies practice questions, the Paper 2 overview and the Section A societies in change guide.

Syllabus coverage

OXFORDAQA INTERNATIONAL GCSE HISTORY (9245), VERSION 1.1 – 3.2.2 SECTION B: THEMATIC STUDIES

Technology and change, c800-present	Medicine and change, c800-present
The Islamic Golden Age for technology (c800-c1200)	Medieval Islamic Medicine
The Printing Revolution (c1440-c1800)	Epidemics in the pre-modern era, c800-c1800
Steam Power (c1710-c1900)	19th-Century Medical Advances
The Communications Revolution (1830-1950)	The Fight against Disease in the 20th Century
The Automobile (c1880-present)	A modern medical revolution, c1880-present
Computing and the internet (1830s-present)	Global Public Health (1850-present)

Assessment: question 1 (3 marks) knowledge; question 2 (6) explain one way an issue developed; question 3 (9) explain two changes or reasons; question 4 (12) an extended, judged response on a cause, consequence or change against at least one other.

Technology and change, c800-present

The Islamic Golden Age (c800-c1200). Scholars refined the astrolabe for astronomy, time-keeping and navigation; engineers improved irrigation and water management and spread new crops; architecture advanced. The Banu Musa brothers in ninth-century Baghdad and Al-Jazari (whose book of ingenious mechanical devices dates from 1206) designed automata, clocks and water-raising machines. Chemistry developed through works attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan and the work of Al-Razi. Baghdad’s House of Wisdom preserved and translated ancient knowledge – Hunayn ibn Ishaq translated Greek texts – and in the twelfth century Gerard of Cremona translated Arabic works into Latin at Toledo, passing them to Europe.

The Printing Revolution (c1440-c1800). Woodblock and movable-type printing existed earlier in China and Korea. Johannes Gutenberg’s press in Mainz (c1440s) used metal type and made books far cheaper; a printing industry spread across Europe, with new typefaces, layouts and jobs, including for some women. Printing in vernacular languages, debates over copyright, the spread of the Renaissance and the Reformation (Luther’s ideas spread rapidly in print after 1517), rising literacy, libraries, universities and scientific exchange all followed.

Steam power (c1710-c1900). Before steam, water, wind and muscle powered work. Thomas Newcomen’s engine (1712) pumped water from mines; James Watt’s separate condenser (patented 1769) made engines far more efficient and adaptable to factories; Richard Trevithick pioneered high-pressure steam and an early locomotive (1804). Steam transformed agriculture, transport, factories and cities, created skilled jobs but also accidents and pollution – and inventors such as Mary Walton patented ways to reduce smoke and railway noise in the 1870s-80s.

The Communications Revolution (1830-1950). Samuel Morse’s telegraph (the Washington-Baltimore line of 1844) grew alongside railways; Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone (1876), creating new jobs such as switchboard operators; Guglielmo Marconi’s radio sent signals across the Atlantic (1901), changing commerce, entertainment and politics. Photography, film and cinema, business machines that opened office work to women, news gathering, broadcasting and government regulation completed the change.

The Automobile (c1880-present). The internal combustion engine led to the first practical motor cars in the 1880s; Henry Ford’s assembly line (1913) made the Model T affordable. Cars created jobs, international trade (especially in oil), new cities and roads, pollution, and cultural change in leisure, crime, sport and advertising. Safety developments and modern innovations such as electric cars continue the story.

Computing and the internet (1830s-present). Charles Babbage designed the Analytical Engine, and Ada Lovelace wrote what is often called the first program for it (1843); George Boole’s logic and Herman Hollerith’s punched-card tabulator (used in the 1890 US census) laid foundations. Alan Turing’s theoretical work and wartime codebreaking led on to transistors, integrated circuits and programming languages, including the work of Grace Hopper. The Xerox Alto, Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows shaped software design; Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web (1989-91). Email, changing work, social media, the digital divide and artificial intelligence bring the study to the present.

Medicine and change, c800-present

Medieval Islamic medicine. The Translation Movement preserved Greek and other knowledge; centres of learning and bimaristans (hospitals) developed. Al-Razi distinguished smallpox from measles; Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine was used in Europe for centuries; Al-Zahrawi described surgical tools and techniques; Al-Kindi and Ibn al-Baytar advanced pharmacology. Public health, hygiene and water supply improved.

Epidemics before c1800. Leprosy, smallpox, cocoliztli in Mexico and plague in Persia killed millions. Explanations included miasma (bad air), religious causes and contagion. The Black Death spread along trade routes in the 1340s and killed perhaps a third or more of Europe’s population, with major social, economic and political consequences; responses included quarantine.

19th-century advances. Before germ theory, many believed in spontaneous generation. Inoculation was practised in Asia before Edward Jenner’s vaccination (1796), which faced opposition. John Snow linked cholera to a water pump (1854); Louis Pasteur’s germ theory (1860s) and Robert Koch’s identification of specific bacteria transformed understanding; Joseph Lister used carbolic acid antiseptic (1867). Public health laws and sanitation improved; women including Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole, Elizabeth Blackwell, Sophia Jex-Blake and midwives changed nursing and medicine.

The fight against disease in the 20th century. Paul Ehrlich’s “magic bullet” (Salvarsan, 1910), Gerhard Domagk’s sulphonamide drug (1930s), Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin (1928) and its development by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain (from 1940), with mass production in the USA during the war. Gerty Cori, Gertrude Elion, Virginia Apgar and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (who determined the structure of penicillin and other molecules) advanced medicine and the pharmaceutical industry. Antibiotic resistance and national health systems – often influenced by war – follow.

A modern medical revolution, c1880-present. Marie Curie and X-rays (including mobile X-ray units in the First World War); safer pain management; aseptic surgery, blood transfusion and storage, brain surgery pioneered by Harvey Cushing; organ transplants and controlling rejection; Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cell line (1951); Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray work on DNA; keyhole and robotic surgery.

Global public health (1850-present). International co-operation grew into the World Health Organization (1948); campaigns against smallpox (eradicated by 1980), polio, malaria, HIV/AIDS and Ebola; non-communicable diseases; vaccines and pandemic responses, including COVID-19; health equity, globalisation, migration and climate change.

Worked example: a question 3 answer

Explain two ways in which the printing press changed European society. [9]

• Way 1 – religion: printed pamphlets spread Luther’s ideas across Germany within weeks after 1517, so the Reformation could not be contained by the Church.
• Way 2 – knowledge: cheaper books meant scholars across Europe could read the same texts, so scientific ideas were checked, copied and built upon more quickly.

Each way: point, specific evidence, explained consequence.

Common mistakes

• Treating six periods as separate stories instead of tracing change and continuity.
• Naming individuals without explaining their impact.
• Ignoring the specification’s global focus – it includes Asia and the Islamic world, not only Europe.

Frequently asked questions

Which option is easier? Neither; choose the one your school teaches. Both have six periods and the same question types.

Do I need exact dates? Approximate dates and the order of developments matter most; key dates such as 1796 (Jenner) or 1913 (Ford’s assembly line) strengthen answers.

Is AI really on the specification? Yes, under Computing and the internet: artificial intelligence and its opportunities and risks.

Official specification

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