The Unselfish Gene: reading answers and analysis
The writer challenges the idea, linked to Richard Dawkins, that humans are selfish by nature. Prehistoric populations were tiny, so there was little to fight over, and modern hunter-gatherers like the !Kung are strongly egalitarian. Selfishness, hierarchy and war, he argues, came recently, with farming and a new sense of separateness.
Questions 27-40 · 14 marks · 3 question blocks
Where the answers sit
The multiple choice (27-30) walks through the first five paragraphs. The summary (31-35) covers Knauft and the !Kung in paragraphs five and six. YES / NO / NOT GIVEN (36-40) covers paragraphs seven to nine.
Questions 27-30
This passage argues a case, so each question asks what a paragraph does in that argument. The opening describes a common belief (C) that the writer goes on to attack. Dawkins' book succeeded because it suited the competitive mood of its time, not because of its science.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 27 | C | — |
| 28 | C | — |
| 29 | B | — |
| 30 | A | — |
Questions 31-35
All five answers are abstract nouns or an adjective from paragraphs five and six. Question 33 is a paraphrase to decode: the credit goes to whoever owns the arrow, so the success being credited is at hunting.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 31 | egalitarianism | — |
| 32 | status | — |
| 33 | hunting | — |
| 34 | domineering | — |
| 35 | autonomy | — |
Questions 36-40
Question 37 is the one to watch. The writer says warlike traits would have been of little benefit in prehistory, and that selfish, ruthless people were less likely to survive. That contradicts 'an advantage', so the answer is NO. The NOT GIVENs bring in anthropologists being mistaken and differences between modern cultures, which the writer never discusses.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 36 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 37 | NO | — |
| 38 | YES | — |
| 39 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 40 | NO | — |
The questions most people get wrong
NO. 'Of little benefit', plus the line that ruthless individuals would be pushed out of their groups, directly contradicts the idea that warlike humans had an advantage.
NO. The research repeatedly shows that primates become more violent when their habitat is disrupted, which is exactly the link the statement says wasn't found.
B. The writer never says resources were plentiful, but with under half a million people on Earth there was no need to compete for them. That inference is the answer.
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The full Cambridge 19 Test 4 reading paper: all three passages, 60 minutes, marked the second you finish with a review of every answer. Already done it? Take it again and see if the same traps still get you.
Cambridge IELTS 19, Test 4, Reading Passage 3. The passage name belongs to Cambridge University Press. No passage text or question wording is reproduced on this page. The answers are published for self-marking, and the analysis is our own.