Anthropologist: One of the distinctive traits of humans is the ability to support a large brain with a small gut, which requires getting more calories from less food. ██ ███ ██████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ████ █████████ █████ ████ ███ █████████ █████████ █████ ██████ ██████ ███ ████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ █████ ███ ████ ██████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ████ ████ ██████████ ███████ ██████ █████████
The anthropologist hypothesizes that cooking was probably the development that enabled humans to get enough calories from their food to support a larger brain. This is based on the observation that humans developed larger brains around the same time as starting to control fire, and the observation that it’s hard for people to get enough calories by eating raw food.
The anthropologist assumes that humans began to cook around the time they began to control fire.
The anthropologist also assumes that there isn’t another reason why people who eat raw food have more difficulty getting enough calories—for example, that they are not eating significantly less than people who eat cooked food.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ ████████████████ █████████
Cooked foods contain ███ ████ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ██████
This weakens the anthropologist’s hypothesis, as it rules out one possible mechanism for how cooking food increases the number of calories available from that food—that is, that cooking could add more calories to the food.
Answers that, if they have any effect, do the opposite of what we want (weaken when we're trying to strengthen, or strengthen when we're trying to weaken).
Raw meat contains ████ ████████ ████ █ ███████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████████
This is irrelevant, because the argument only compares raw food to cooked food. Comparisons between different types of raw food don’t help us support the anthropologist’s hypothesis.
The human body ██ ████ ██ ███████ █ ███████ ██████ ██ ████████ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ███ █████
This weakens by effectively ruling out the cooking of food as a mechanism for humans to get more calories from less food; instead, this would mean that cooking food makes no difference to how many calories humans can get from it.
Answers that, if they have any effect, do the opposite of what we want (weaken when we're trying to strengthen, or strengthen when we're trying to weaken).
The human body ████ ████ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ███████ ██████ █████
This strengthens the anthropologist’s hypothesis by providing a mechanism for humans to get more calories from cooked food than raw food.
Presenting evidence that corroborates (in Strengthen) or conflicts (in Weaken) with the author's hypothesized explanation or the predictions that follow from that explanation.
Domesticated plants and ███████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ████ █████ ████ ████████████ ████
This is irrelevant, because we don’t have any information about when humans started eating domesticated plants and animals in relation to when they started using fire. Without a timeline, this can’t help us.
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