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
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.
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.
Future Research ·More testing required to better understand raw v. cooked
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)
21.
The authors would be most ██████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████████
Question Type
Author’s perspective
Implied
We can’t predict the correct answer just based on the question stem, so let’s use process of elimination.
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.
11%
e
The human digestive ███████ ███ ███████ ██████ ████ ████████████ █████
Not supported, because the author describes changes in our digestive anatomy over time in the last paragraph.
2%
Difficulty
84% of people who answer get this correct
This is a moderately difficult question.
It is somewhat easier than other questions in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%133
143
75%153
Analysis
Author’s perspective
Author’s perspective
Stems that ask us to find an answer the author is most likely to agree with.
Stems asking us to infer an idea implied by the claims in the passage (as opposed to identifying an idea that appears explicitly). Similar to most strongly supported questions in LR.
Critique or debate passages contain multiple points of view on a particular subject. Sometimes the author takes sides and participates in the critique or debate, other times the author merely reports the debate.
Passages that focus on describing or evaluating potential explanations for a given phenomenon. Causal reasoning features prominently in these passages.