75 pages 2 hours read

Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2011

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Exam Answer Key

Multiple Choice

1. A (Various chapters)

2. C (Various chapters)

3. B (Various chapters)

4. D (Various chapters)

5. A (Various chapters)

6. B (Various chapters)

7. D (Various chapters)

8. C (Various chapters)

9. C (Various chapters)

10. A (Various chapters)

11. D (Various chapters)

12. B (Various chapters)

13. D (Various chapters)

14. B (Various chapters)

15. C (Various chapters)

Long Answer

1. The evolution of human intelligence is what has allowed humans to make rapid changes to social structures by adopting imagined realities that allow strangers to cooperate in large groups. But this same evolutionary process has not equipped our brains with the ability to cope with these large-scale changes: Our brains are still, in many ways, those of hunter-gatherers. (Various chapters)

2. In the past, physical and cultural changes have been essentially random variations that either survive or are extinguished due to environmental factors—it has been a blind and purposeless process. But in the future, Harari believes, we will enter a phase of “intelligent design” in which humans will be able to use science and medicine to choose for ourselves how the species develops into the future. (Various chapters)