what an animal

Vocabulary and Reading Section

A. Find the animals hiding in the following sentences.

Example: Close the door at once! (rat)

1. That will be a real help.
2. She came late every day.
3. Eric owes me ten cents.
4. We made errors in each one.
5. Do good workers succeed?
6. If I shout, he’ll hear me.
7. If Roger comes, we’ll begin.
8. We will go at two o’clock.
9. Is it the sixth or seventh?
10. In April I only came once.

B. Read the following text without a dictionary, and try to get the message. Don’t worry if you don’t know some of the words.

A new branch of ant learning

Seeing ants gather around the early broad beans is not a sight to gladden the amateur gardener. For the ants are there because tiny aphids have arrive earlier. Aphids feed on the plant sap, and they produce a kind of nectar which the ants collect and carry off to their underground nests. Everybody wins – except the plants. But scientists at Cornell University in New York have been investigating another case of ant-plant behavior where both sides come out winning. It is described as ‘mutualism’, a state in which both plant and insect derive benefit from the other. The plant, a tropical shrub, has the ability to produce globular food bodies – comfortable ant-sized meals – on the interior of hollow stems. The stems make a cozy home for the ants, while the ants defend the plant against the hordes of other insects which would otherwise consume it. This seems sensible and beneficial relationship. But there is a twist to the tale or at least to its biochemistry. In some way, as yet not defined, the plant knows when the ants arrive to colonize its attractive apartments. When the ants are not there, it produces no food for them. When the yare there it produces food in abundance. How does the plant know when the ants are there?

Now, write T if the statement is true according to the text and F if the statement is false.

1. The ants consume the plant where they live.
2. Mutualism means give benefit to each other.
3. The plant grows in a place with a tropical climate.
4. The plant does not know whether the ants are there.
5. In a beneficial relationship, the ants win and the plant loose.

Speaking Section

How do you feel about these statements? Say a few words giving your opinion about some of them. For example:

- I strongly agree

- I agree

- It depends

- I have no idea

- I disagree

- I disagree strongly

1. Animals should not be kept in zoos.

2. It is wrong to hunt animals for sport.

3. People shouldn’t buy clothes made of animal fur.

4. It is wrong to kill animals for food.

5. Hunting and fishing are good, natural sports.

Translation Section

Translate the following facts about some animals.

Did you know?

- A giraffe’s heart weighs 22 kilos.

- A grizzly bear can run as fast as a horse.

- In a lion family, the females do more than 90% of the hunting.

- The first camel lived in North America.

- A new-born baby blue whale weighs as much as an adult African elephant.

- A new-born panda is smaller than a mouse, and weighs about 100 grams.