Studying history primarily helps us with:
a. Developing critical thinking skills and questioning multiple perspectives.
History encourages us to analyze various viewpoints, understand context, and appreciate the complexity of human behavior and societies over time. While memorizing details can be a part of historical study, the main benefit lies in understanding and interpreting events, which fosters critical thinking. Options c and d relate to different fields (geology and paleontology, respectively) and are not primarily the focus of history.