# Rethinking the Past: answers and explanations

Cambridge IELTS 21, Test 3, Reading Passage 3

Source: Passage, questions and answer key from Cambridge IELTS 21, Test 3, Reading Passage 3. © Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Used for educational practice. Explanations and evidence notes are written by Testmigo.

## Answer key

| Q | Answer | Proof |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 27 | A | Two things stand out to me. ... can be traced much further back in time than we thought |
| 28 | A | Evolution usually works by incremental steps and so does technology. |
| 29 | D | Archaeology was invented by individuals with now unfashionably patriarchal views about gender, and those notions fed into their research. |
| 30 | A | They're choices, and prehistory shows us that we can choose differently. |
| 31 | E | buried logs that had been shaped with stone tools so that they interlocked ... That's almost 200,000 years before our species, Homo sapiens, evolved. |
| 32 | F | the Denisovans lived on the frozen heights of high-altitude regions 200,000 years ago |
| 33 | D | a meta-analysis published in June 2023 compiled data on several dozen foraging societies and found women hunted in 80 per cent of them |
| 34 | B | turned out to be female, not male as many had assumed |
| 35 | NO | Even earlier species, such as Homo erectus, may also have made art |
| 36 | NOT GIVEN | for example by engraving patterns on shells |
| 37 | NOT GIVEN | researchers have found what seem to be etchings ... in a non-traditional journal that publishes peer reviews publicly alongside the paper |
| 38 | YES | though these have yet to be firmly dated ... in particular with regard to the dating of the etchings |
| 39 | YES | The dispute has only been heightened by the way the results were released |
| 40 | NO | I think the species' small brains are a distraction |

## Why these answers are right

**27. A.** In the second paragraph the writer draws out two overall messages from recent finds: advanced behaviors go back much further than we thought, and we have badly misunderstood prehistoric gender roles. Identifying these two shifts is pinpointing key changes in our understanding, so A.

**28. A.** The writer says evolution and technology both usually work by incremental steps, then gives two examples: the first birds were poor flyers and the first mobile phones were not great at anything. The phones illustrate gradual development, so the answer is A.

**29. D.** The paragraph explains that archaeology's founders had patriarchal views that fed into their research, and today's researchers are trying to unpick this stuff. The stuff is that biased research, so unpicking it means reevaluating work shaped by outdated beliefs, option D.

The why and the trap for questions 30 onwards are free with an account on the [answers page](https://testmigo.com/ielts/reading/rethinking-the-past/answers).

[Practice Rethinking the Past](https://testmigo.com/ielts/reading/rethinking-the-past)