IELTS Reading Matching Sentence Endings Example 2

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Updated On Aug 14, 2024

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Here Have teenagers always existed is an example of the IELTS Reading Matching Sentence Endings type of question which is one of the 14 questions asked in the Reading section of the exam. You will be given a list of incomplete sentences with no endings and a list of possible endings for this type of question. Based on the reading text, your objective is to find the right ends to the unfinished sentences.

A. Until recently, the dominant explanation was that physical growth is delayed by our need to grow large brains and to learn all the behaviour patterns associated with humanity – speaking, social interaction and so on. While such behaviour is still developing, humans cannot easily fend for themselves, so it is best to stay small and look youthful. That way your parents and other members of the social group are motivated to continue looking after you. The human fossil record is extremely sparse, and the number of fossilised children minuscule. Nevertheless, in the past few years, anthropologists have begun to look at what can be learned of the lives of our ancestors from these youngsters. One of the most studied is the famous Turkana boy, an almost complete skeleton of Homo erectus from 1.6 million years ago found in Kenya in 1984. Accurately assessing how old someone is from their skeleton is a tricky business. Even with a modern human, you can only make a rough estimate based on the developmental stage of teeth and bones and the skeleton’s general size. 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. One 10-year-old boy, for example, had a dental age of 9, the skeleton of a 6-year-old but was tall enough to be 11. The Turkana kid still has a rounded skull, and needs more growth to reach the adult shape,’ Anton adds. She thinks that Homo erectus had already developed modern human patterns of growth, with a late, if not quite so extreme, adolescent spurt. She believes Turkana boy was just about to enter it.

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.

Questions 1-4:

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below.

Write the correct letter, A-G, in blank spaces 1-4 on your answer sheet.

Until recently, delayed growth in humans until adolescence was felt to be due to …………….
In her research, Margaret Clegg discovered ……………….
Steven Leigh thought the existence of adolescence is connected to …………………
Research on Neanderthals suggests that they had short lives because of ………………….

inconsistencies between height, skeleton and dental evidence.
the fact that human beings walk on two legs.
the way teeth grew.
a need to be dependent on others for survival.
difficult climatic conditions.
increased quantities of food.
the existence of much larger brains than previously.

Answers

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

Explanation

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For the first question, the answer is in the first para, first line; “Until recently, the dominant explanation was that physical growth is delayed by our need to grow large brains and to learn all the behaviour patterns associated with humanity – speaking, social interaction and so on.”

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.”

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