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patto
Joined: 22 Jun 2017
Last visit: 09 Jul 2021
Posts: 235
Given Kudos: 149
Location: Argentina
Schools: HBS '25 Wharton '25 Stanford '25
GMAT 1: 630 Q43 V34
GMAT 2: 710 Q50 V36 (Online)
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26 Feb 2019, 12:30
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E
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
45%
(medium)
Question Stats:
67% (02:04) correct
33%
(02:08)
wrong
based on 856
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A high-calorie diet providing adequate fats was a crucial requirement for the evolution of the anatomically modern human brain, a process that began among our early human ancestors. Food resources that could support such a diet were most abundant and reliable in the shore environments that were available to early humans. Nevertheless, the human brain's evolution took place almost exclusively in savanna and woodland areas.
Which one of the following, if true, would most help to resolve the apparent conflict presented above?
(A) Early humans had a significantly lower metabolic rate than anatomically modern humans, allowing them to expend their fat reserves more efficiently.
(B) The brains of the earliest known humans were 30 percent smaller than the anatomically modern human brain.
(C) Prehistoric savanna and woodland areas offered more reliable and abundant resources than they do today.
(D) The techniques used to explore the archaeology of prehistoric shore sites have only recently been developed.
(E) Gathering food in shore environments required a significantly greater expenditure of calories by early humans than did gathering food in other environments.
Which one of the following, if true, would most help to resolve the apparent conflict presented above?
(A) Early humans had a significantly lower metabolic rate than anatomically modern humans, allowing them to expend their fat reserves more efficiently.
(B) The brains of the earliest known humans were 30 percent smaller than the anatomically modern human brain.
(C) Prehistoric savanna and woodland areas offered more reliable and abundant resources than they do today.
(D) The techniques used to explore the archaeology of prehistoric shore sites have only recently been developed.
(E) Gathering food in shore environments required a significantly greater expenditure of calories by early humans than did gathering food in other environments.
27 Feb 2019, 12:48
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It's option 'E'
Though the source of high calorie diet was available at sea shore , expenditure of calorie was also great among the people living near the sea shore when compared with other areas according to option E, so one can say that over all calorie intake of the people near sea shore might be low when compared to people of other areas which resulted in the discrepancy, hope it helps.
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Though the source of high calorie diet was available at sea shore , expenditure of calorie was also great among the people living near the sea shore when compared with other areas according to option E, so one can say that over all calorie intake of the people near sea shore might be low when compared to people of other areas which resulted in the discrepancy, hope it helps.
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patto
A high-calorie diet providing adequate fats was a crucial requirement for the evolution of the anatomically modern human brain
Food resources that could support such a diet were most abundant and reliable in the shore environments that were available to early humans. Nevertheless, the human brain's evolution took place almost exclusively in savanna and woodland areas.
Discrepancy - Food resources that could support brain development were most abundant in shore env but the evolution actually took place exclusively in non shore env. Why? Why did it not take place in shore env.
Note that the argument does not say that the said resources were not available in non-shore environments. Just that they were the most abundant in shore env. Then it does logically follow that the evolution should have been highest in shore env too. But that was not the case. Why?
(A) Early humans had a significantly lower metabolic rate than anatomically modern humans, allowing them to expend their fat reserves more efficiently.
There is no comparison needed between early and modern humans' metabolic rate. The question is why shore env early humans' brain not evolve while that of non shore env early humans' did.
(B) The brains of the earliest known humans were 30 percent smaller than the anatomically modern human brain.
We know that the earliest human's brain evolved to modern human's brain. How much was the increase in size doesn't help answer our question.
(C) Prehistoric savanna and woodland areas offered more reliable and abundant resources than they do today.
Distinction is not between early and modern areas. It is between early shore areas and early non-shore areas.
(D) The techniques used to explore the archaeology of prehistoric shore sites have only recently been developed.
Even if they have been recently discovered, they have already been discovered and it has been established that "evolution took place almost exclusively in savanna and woodland areas".
(E) Gathering food in shore environments required a significantly greater expenditure of calories by early humans than did gathering food in other environments.
This helps. Even though shore env had abundant appropriate food resources (say fish and other food sources from the ocean), gathering food here required much greater expenditure of calories (say for fishing) so it was harder to gather food here. Even if it was gathered, the requirement of calories was far more because calories were expended in gathering food. So extra calories may not have been available to early humans living at the shore to help in their brain evolution.
This explains why evolution may have taken place exclusively in some non-shore areas.
Answer (E)
