Đề thi thử tốt nghiệp THPT 2027 môn Tiếng Anh — Đề ôn luyện số 21

For most of history, loading a ship was slow, costly and labour-intensive. Sacks, barrels and crates of every shape were carried on board one by one by teams of dockworkers, and a vessel could spend as much time tied up in port as at sea. Theft and damage were common, and the expense of handling goods often made up a large share of their final price. In 1956, an American trucking businessman, Malcom McLean, tried a different approach: he sent a converted oil tanker from New Jersey to Texas carrying 58 metal boxes that had been lifted straight off the backs of trucks. By his own calculation, loading cargo in this way cost only a small fraction of what the traditional method did.

The idea spread slowly at first. Ports needed new cranes, ships had to be redesigned, and companies argued for years over the size of the boxes. Once international standards were agreed in the late 1960s, however, the container became the backbone of global trade. Because a standard box can move from ship to train to truck without being opened, goods can now cross oceans and continents with very little human handling. Today, most goods traded between countries travel by sea, and the largest ships can carry the equivalent of more than 20,000 standard-sized containers on a single voyage. Transport has become so cheap that it is often a minor part of a product's price, which helps to explain why a shirt may be sewn in one country from cotton grown in another and sold in a third.

The benefits of this revolution, however, have not been shared equally. [I] In many port cities, the old docks near the city centre fell silent, as container terminals required vast areas of flat land and deep water further away. [II] Large numbers of dockworkers whose jobs had depended on carrying goods by hand discovered that a handful of crane operators could now do the same work. [III] At the same time, manufacturers gained the freedom to build factories wherever labour and materials were cheapest, a shift that brought jobs and growth to parts of Asia while factory towns elsewhere declined. [IV]

Recent years have also exposed the weaknesses of a system built on speed and efficiency. In 2021, a single giant container ship that ran aground in the Suez Canal blocked one of the world's busiest trade routes for six days, leaving hundreds of vessels waiting at either end. During the pandemic, containers piled up in the wrong ports and shipping costs soared. Some economists argue that the container did more to expand world trade than many trade agreements did; if so, it has also bound national economies together so tightly that a delay in one place can be felt almost everywhere. Many firms that once relied on parts arriving exactly when they were needed now keep larger stocks, accepting higher costs in exchange for security.