IELTS Reading Matching Sentence Endings Example 2

B. Anthropologist Steven Leigh from the University of Illinois goes further. He believes the idea of adolescence as catch-up growth does not explain why the growth rate increases so dramatically. According to his theory, adolescence evolved as an integral part of efficient upright locomotion, as well as to accommodate more complex brains. Fossil evidence suggests that our ancestors first walked on two legs six million years ago. If proficient walking was important for survival, perhaps the teenage growth spurt has very ancient origins. While many anthropologists will consider Leigh’s theory a step too far, he is not the only one with new ideas about the evolution of teenagers. A more decisive piece of evidence came last year when researchers in France and Spain published their findings from a study of Neanderthal teeth. Neanderthals had much-festered tooth growth than Homo erectus who went before them, and hence, possibly, a shorter childhood. Lead researcher Fernando Ramirez-Rozzi thinks Neanderthals died young – about 25 years old — primarily because of the cold, harsh environment they had to endure in glacial Europe. They evolved to grow up quicker than their immediate ancestors. Neanderthals and Homo erectus probably had to reach adulthood fairly quickly, without delaying for an adolescent growth spurt. So it still looks as though we are the original teenagers.

1. a need to be dependent on others for survival.
2. inconsistencies between height, skeleton and dental evidence.
3. the fact that human beings walk on two legs.
4. difficult climatic conditions.

The second answer is in the first para, twelfth line; “Susan Anton of New York University points to research by Margaret Clegg who studied a collection of 18th- and 19th-century skeletons whose ages at death were known. When she tried to age the skeletons without checking the records, she found similar discrepancies to those of the Turkana boy.”

For the third question, the answer can be found in the second para, fourth line; “Fossil evidence suggests that our ancestors first walked on two legs six million years ago. If proficient walking was important for survival, perhaps the teenage growth spurt has very ancient origins. While many anthropologists will consider Leigh’s theory a step too far, he is not the only one with new ideas about the evolution of teenagers.”

The fourth answer is in the second para, eleventh line; “Lead researcher Fernando Ramirez-Rozzi thinks Neanderthals died young – about 25 years old — primarily because of the cold, harsh environment they had to endure in glacial Europe.”