TOEFL Integrated Writing

📖 Reading Passage

The extinction of the megafauna—large animals such as mammoths, giant sloths, and saber-toothed cats—at the end of the Pleistocene epoch has long puzzled scientists. While many factors have been proposed, the most compelling explanation is overhunting by early humans. First, the timing of extinctions correlates strongly with human arrival on different continents. In North America, for example, the megafauna disappeared shortly after the Clovis people crossed the Bering land bridge around 13,000 years ago. In Australia, a similar pattern occurred with human colonization about 45,000 years ago. Second, archaeological evidence supports human predation: numerous kill sites have been found with projectile points embedded in megafauna bones, such as the Clovis points associated with mammoth remains. Third, the selective extinction of large-bodied species is consistent with human hunting preferences, as these animals provided abundant meat and would have been prime targets. Smaller species, which were less vulnerable to overhunting, largely survived. Thus, human hunting pressure, not climate change, was the primary driver of this extinction event.

🎧 Listening Lecture

The reading's claim that human overhunting caused megafaunal extinction is unconvincing. First, the timing correlation is weaker than presented. In North America, some megafauna species, like the mastodon, show evidence of decline before the Clovis arrival, while in Australia, human presence overlapped with megafauna for several thousand years without immediate extinction, indicating that hunting alone cannot explain the pattern. Second, the archaeological evidence is often ambiguous. Many kill sites are rare and contested; at some sites, bones and artifacts may have been deposited separately and later mixed by natural processes. Moreover, the number of kill sites is small compared to the vast populations of megafauna, suggesting that hunting was not intense enough to drive extinction. Third, the selectivity for large animals is not unique to human hunting. Climate and environmental changes at the end of the Pleistocene, including rapid warming and vegetation shifts, would have disproportionately affected large species due to their slower reproduction and specialized diets. These changes also altered habitats, fragmenting populations and making them more vulnerable to any added stress. Therefore, the evidence points to climate change as the dominant cause, with human hunting playing only a minor role.