Held:
9 a.m. - noon, Thursday, 20 May 2010
Notes: This is a sample final examination for the
Spring 2010 offering of TEC 154, the Evolution of Technology. It is
intended to give the flavor of the final. There are more than twenty
sample questions on this examination, even though the final examination
will have twenty or fewer questions.
In some cases, the sample
questions are given in full form, and are similar to the questions that
will be asked on the final. In other cases, the sample questions are
given only as a framework (which author said ...?). These frameworks
are likely to be on the exam, with particular detailed filled in. Part
D of the exam provides a framework that students will apply to a reading
that they do during class.
There are twenty problems in this exam, broken up into 5 categories.
Even though you may find that different problems require different
amounts of time or have different difficulties, each problem is worth
the same number of points.
Write your name at the top of each page.
Do your best to spell and apply rules of grammar correctly.
This exam is primarily a closed-book exam. However, you may use one sheet of
notes that you have prepared in advance.
Please write your name on those notes and turn them in with the exam.
Please write and sign the following statement on the cover
page of the exam. If you are unable to sign the statement, please talk
to me at your earliest convenience.
I did not cheat on this exam. I am unaware of any classmates who cheated
on this exam.
Give the primary thesis from three of the four of the first set of
presentations (Wireless videogame controllers, Electroconvulsive therapy,
Birth Control, Household technologies).
Give the primary thesis from three of the four of the second set of
presentations (Ethanol, Wired telephones, Cell phones, Football helmets).
For one of the technologies (not including your own or the one you
reviewed), apply Berry's question of what are the indirect effects
of using this technology?
Answer two of the four following problems posed by project participants
(or by the pondering professor). You may not answer a problem on your own
presentation.
These questions will be added. The list of questions received from
project groups will be distributed when they are received.
In certain ways, Kluber and Simon's work illustrates a different
conception of Petroski's Form Follows Failure
hypothesis.
Give two ways in which the form of their pieces is a response to some
kind of failure.
In his lecture, Professor Case described pre-stressed concrete and indicated
that it is an important material in modern structural engineering.
a. What is prestressing
?
b. What problem is prestressing intended to alleviate?
c. What other benefits have designers found in the use of pre-stressed
concrete?
In Professor Robertson's lectures, she noted that a variety of factors
led to the failure of groups to adopt genetically engineered organisms.
Give three such factors.
In Professor Swartz's lectures, he noted a number of elements that decrease
the efficiency of photovoltaics. Give three such elements.
In Professor Rebelsky's lectures, he drew a simple model of computation
on the board. Sketch that model and explain the parts.
In his lectures, Rebelsky followed up the work of Ceruzzi and highlighted
the evolution of ways in which we use computing. What are the main applications
of computing that Ceruzzi and Rebelsky described and in what order did they
become applications?
In The Design of Everyday Things, Donald Norman uses a small
Lego kit to make a point. What is that point?
Rothschild and McGaw use a number of technologies to illustrate their points.
Give two of those technologies and summarize the points they are intended
to illustrate.
In Desperately seeking simplicity: how young adults with cognitive disabilities and their families adopt assistive technologies
, we learn that a
number of actors are involved in the selection of an assistive technology.
Give three important actors and the roles they serve.
Although we did not have the opportunity to discuss Bush in depth, he
presents a wide variety of perspectives on the roles of science and
technology. Suppose we had read Bush at the start of the semester.
What are the key ideas in Bush that we might apply to other technologies?
Identify the authors the following three quotations, which were taken from
readings from the second half of the semester. If you can't identify
the author of a quotation, do your best to explain the context from
which the quotation is likely to have come.
Below are the names of six authors and six technologies. Indicate which
author used which technology, and what purpose the technology was intended
to serve.
Billington suggests that even when the focus of a technology is utility,
it can be useful to consider the aesthetics of the technology. Describe
another technology that we have considered (other than art) in which
aesthetic considerations play a major role.
Accompanying this exam are two articles on technologies that we have not
studied this semester. Choose one of the two articles, read the article,
and answer the following questions.
What is the primary thesis of this work?
a. In your words.
b. In the author's words.
What new perspective on technology does this article raise?
In Do Artifacts Have Politics?
, Langdon Winner suggests that we
should ask what what groups or power structures a technology supports
or hinders. What politics does the technology described in this article
have?
Donald Norman emphasizes the usability of everyday objects. What would Norman
say about the usability of the technology described in the article?
The evolution of each of these two technologies corresponds, in part, to
Petroski's claim that we learn from failure. Explain
what the technology described in the article adds to Petroski's
central theses.
In what ways is the technology described in the article a democratic
or non-democratic technology?
Wendell Berry gives a number of criteria for when a successor technology
is better
than the technology it replaces. Apply these criteria
to the technology described in the article.
List Eric Simpson's five key attributes of a good thesis.
Consider the following technologies described in class. Put these
technologies in (approximate) chronological order: the first long-distance
telephone line; the washing machine; pre-stressed concrete; genetically
engineered crops; medical birth-control; ethanol.
What was your favorite reading that we've done since the first exam? Why?
We developed a large number of lenses in the first half of the
semester that we've continued to apply for the second half of the
semester. At the same time, we've found new lenses to apply. Give
three of them.
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