Exercise 3: sample answer (theme: roads)

Roads shaped the bicycle's fortunes. The hobby horse and the boneshaker faded partly because roads were rough and the machines uncomfortable, while the pneumatic tyre and the safety bicycle made rough roads tolerable and triggered the boom of the 1890s (check). In turn, cyclists' clubs lobbied for better surfaces, and those improvements later helped motor traffic, which then crowded cyclists out in the mid-twentieth century (check). Technology and society therefore shaped each other: neither machine nor road changed alone.