LSAT PrepTest 150 - Section 1 - Passage 4 - Question 25

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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.

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.

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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.

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Phenomenon · Evolution of our guts

Harder to explain owing to lack of fossil records.

Other People's Hypothesis · Human guts evolved to digest raw meats

Smaller gut volume; longer small intestine; smaller colon.

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)

25.

Which one of the following, ██ █████ █████ ███████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ███ ████████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████████ █████████ ███ █████████████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ██████████

Question Type

WSE (RC)

There is a view, held by others, that because cooking is too recent a practice, it could not have had an evolutionary impact on humans. The author calls that view wrong. We want to strengthen the author’s view.

Notice that the author already provides one piece of support: there’s evidence humans have been cooking for a very long time. This line of attack helps show that the other view is based on an incorrect premise — cooking isn’t actually a recent practice. This suggests that another way we might support the author’s attack on that view is to criticize that view’s assumption: maybe it’s possible for a practice to affect human evolution even if it were relatively recent?

Evidence from cut █████ ██ ██████ █████ ████████ ████ █████ ███████ ███████ █████████ ████ █████ █████ █████ ██ ███████ ████████

We have no reason to think evidence of the butchering of animals by early humans could suggest that cooking might have affected human evolution. Butchering of animals can occur to prepare them for raw consumption, so we can’t interpret (A) as evidence that cooking has been around for a long time.

14%

Human populations are █████████ ██ ████ ███████ ████████████ ██ ████████ ███ ████ ██ ████████████ ███████ ██ █████ █████ ██ █████

This strengthens the author’s claim by showing that the assumption in the view the author criticizes is wrong. That view assumes that in order for a practice to affect human evolution, it can’t be a recent practice in human history. But (B) shows that a practice that has been around for fewer than 5,000 years (drinking milk), which is still relatively recent when you consider the scale of early human history, did affect human evolution.

32%

Archaeological evidence indicates ████ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ███ ██ ██████ █████████ ████ ████████ ███████ ████ ████████ ███ █████

We have no reason to think the correspondence between fire use and climatic changes that produced the ice ages suggests anything about the timeline required for cooking to affect human evolution.

18%

An increase in ███ ██████████ ██ ███ █████ ███████ █████████ ██ █████ ██ █████ ██████ █████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ █████ █████ ██ █████ █████

(D) may establish that early humans ate more plants. But we have no reason to think that a diet higher in plants has anything to do with the timeline required for cooking to affect human evolution.

12%

The fossil record █████████ ████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███████ ███████ ███████ █████ █████ ███ ███ ████ ███████ ███████████

(E) establishes that there have been changes in human evolution in the past 100,000 years, because we know from the passage that tooth/jaw began decreasing about 100,000 years ago. But we have no idea whether the changes in brain volume are related to any recent human practice. So (E) doesn’t suggest anything about the timeline required for cooking to affect human evolution.

24%

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PrepTest 150 - Section 1 - Passage 4 - Question 25

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