Задание №23636 ЕГЭ по Английскому языку

Chicken or egg?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It may surprise you to know that this age-old question originated in ancient Greece, where                          (PHILOSOPHY) seized upon it as a pretext for debating the intricacies of cause and effect.

Some argue that the chicken came first, while others                          (AGREE) with this notion and assert that the egg preceded the chicken, considering that all chickens come into existence within an egg.

However, a conversation with an expert in ancient eggs yields a rather straightforward answer. In essence, the egg predates the chicken by a substantial margin. Humans likely began domesticating chickens around 10,000 years ago, but the ancestors of these chickens, known as jungle chickens, trace back a staggering 21 million years into the past.                          (BELIEVE), isn't it?

The earliest eggs were relatively soft, akin to the eggs of turtles or echidnas that one might encounter on a beach. The evolution of a harder,                          (PROTECT) shell occurred at a later stage. 

Interestingly, the ability to lay eggs is an integral part of our evolutionary                          (DEVELOP). Put simply, if we venture far enough back in time, we will find human ancestors that reproduced by laying eggs. This prompts another intriguing question – which came first, the egg or the echidna?