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18 exam-style questions with model answers, plus 24 quick multi-choice questions — every question on the site for this standard, grouped by the 6 pages of notes they come from.
Write a full answer before you reveal the model one — that comparison is where the marks come from. Every block links back to the notes that teach it.
Describe four skeletal changes linked to bipedalism, comparing hominins with living hominids such as the chimpanzee.
Explain why bipedalism was favoured by natural selection in early hominins, and explain why the fossil evidence shows it could not have been a consequence of increased intelligence.
Bipedalism brought significant costs as well as benefits. Discuss these costs, and evaluate what the persistence of bipedalism despite them tells us about how natural selection operates.
Describe the trends in cranial capacity and in the face and jaws over the course of human evolution, and describe what an endocast can show.
Explain why the human chewing apparatus reduced at the same time as the braincase enlarged, and explain why these two trends are connected rather than independent.
Cranial capacity is often used as the main measure of trends in human brain evolution. Discuss the limitations of this measure, and evaluate what endocranial evidence can and cannot establish.
Describe the changes in the manipulative ability of the hand during hominin evolution, and describe the difference between a power grip and a precision grip.
Explain why improved manipulative ability was favoured by natural selection, and explain how this trend is connected to the other biological trends in human evolution.
Some fossil hominins show a mosaic of hand features — derived, manipulative thumbs alongside curved, climbing-adapted fingers. Discuss what such mosaics tell us about how evolution proceeds, and evaluate the difficulties they create for interpreting the fossil record.
Describe the trends in hominin tool use, and describe four benefits of the controlled use of fire.
Explain how cultural evolution differs from biological evolution, and explain why the two are nonetheless closely connected in human evolution.
Evaluate the evidence used to infer cognitive abilities such as planning and teaching from stone tools, and discuss how confident we can be in those inferences.
Describe the trend in shelter during human evolution, and describe the evidence used to infer abstract thought.
Explain how domestication of plants and animals differs from natural selection, and explain why the shift from foraging to farming spread despite often reducing individual health.
Cultural innovations such as fire, clothing and shelter allowed humans to occupy environments their biology alone could not tolerate. Discuss the consequences of this for human evolution, and evaluate whether culture has reduced the effect of natural selection on humans.
Describe the patterns of hominin dispersal, and describe three cultural developments that made dispersal into cold regions possible.
Explain why hominin dispersal depended on cultural rather than biological change, and explain why climate was central to both enabling and driving it.
Evidence that Homo sapiens interbred with other hominin species has changed how dispersal is understood. Discuss what this evidence shows, and evaluate what it implies for the species concept and for how human evolution should be described.