PT150.S1.P4.Q21

PrepTest 150 - Section 1 - Passage 4 - Question 21

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P1

It might reasonably have been expected that the adoption of cooking by early humans would not have led to any changes in human digestive anatomy. █████ ████ ███████ █████ ████ ██████ ██ ████ █████ █████ ████ ██ ███████ ███████████ ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ██████ █████ ███

Other People’s Argument · Cooking didn’t lead to changes in human digestive anatomy
Because cooking makes food easier to digest.
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Counter Evidence · Humans generally cannot survive on only raw food
Too hard to digest.
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Author's Position · Cooking is obligatory
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Other People's Position Wrong · That there wasn't enough time for cooking to impact evolution
Evidence of cooking dates back at least 250k years.
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Author's Hypothesis · Cooking evolutionarily changed human digestion
We evolved to efficiently digest high and densely caloric foods thanks to cooking. Now we are reliant on cooked foods and cannot survive on raw food alone.
P2

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Question · Why can't humans digest raw foods?
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Answer · Tooth and jaw too small
Cooking resulted in decrease in tooth and jaw size. Evidence of cooking techniques developing and decreases in tooth and jaw size support the cooking hypothesis.
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Author's Hypothesis · Decrease in size occurred even earlier
Author suggests that Homo ergaster (1.9m years old) could have developed cooking which reduced their tooth and jaw sizes.
P3

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Phenomenon · Evolution of our guts
Harder to explain owing to lack of fossil records.
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Other People's Hypothesis · Human guts evolved to digest raw meats
Smaller gut volume; longer small intestine; smaller colon.
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Author's Interpretation · But the differences also fit with the cooking hypothesis
These features of our guts also fits with the cooking hypothesis.
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Future Research · More testing required to better understand raw v. cooked
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)
Show answer
21.

The authors would be most ██████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████████

a

Small teeth and ████ █████ ███ ███████ ██ ██████ ██ █████████ ███████ ███ █████

Supported. The author believes cooking has made us biologically adapted to be unable to survive on a raw-food diet. And the author believes one of the main effects of cooking has been to reduce our tooth and jaw size. So, what is a biological adaptation that reduces our ability to survive on a raw-food diet? Smaller teeth and jaws.

83%
b

Because of its ████████ ██ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ████████ ███ █ ███████ ██████████ ██████ ████ ██████ ██████ ███

The author doesn’t compare the intestinal volume of Homo ergaster to that of humans. Rather, the author compares the intestinal volume of great apes to that of humans.

2%
c

Early humans did ███ ███████ ██████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ████████

Not supported, because we have no evidence that humans never used plants for food before cooking. Maybe they ate raw plants for food before they began to cook.

1%
d

The properties of ███ █████ █████████ ███████ ███ █████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████ ██ █ █████████ █████

The author actually points out that our human digestive anatomy may be a result of adaptations to cooking, not adaptations to a high-meat diet.

12%
e

The human digestive ███████ ███ ███████ ██████ ████ ████████████ █████

Not supported, because the author describes changes in our digestive anatomy over time in the last paragraph.

1%

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