Exercises in Reading Comprehension By E. L. Tibbitts (Man's Best Friend)

11 C
Man’s Best Friend
Exercises in Reading Comprehension
By E. L. Tibbits
You Tube Link: https://youtu.be/6gO-P6zQCQw

The dog has been man’s best friend for thousands of years.
Dogs are friendly, obedient and faithful animals. King
Edward VIII of England had a pet terrier named Caesar.
When the king died in 1910, Caesar led the funeral
procession, walking before kings and princes. After the
famous composer Mozart had died, only one living creature
followed his coffin to the grave. It was his faithful dog.

Many stories are told of the bravery and faithfulness of
dogs. There is even a village named after such a dog. It is
the village of Bethgelert (which means ‘grave of Gelert’)
in North Wales. According to the story that has been told
in the village for many centuries, Gelert was a hunting
dog belonging to Llewellyn, the great lord of the region.
One morning, when Llewellyn wanted to go hunting, he
could not find Gelert and set off without him. On his
return from the hunt, Llewellyn found Gelert covered
with blood. Llewellyn’s baby was not in its bed and the
bed itself was in disorder.

Thinking that the dog had eaten the child, Llewellyn killed
Gelert with his sword. The noise awoke the baby, who
had been asleep under a heap of bed coverings. The
father heard his child’s cry, and found him there, safe
and sound. Under the bed was found a great wolf, killed
by Gelert. The faithful dog had saved the life of his
master’s child, and lost his own because of a tragic
misunderstanding.

Have you seen a dog pricking up its ears? Dogs can hear
sounds better than men. For this reason they make good
watch-dogs. Trained dogs lead blind people and act as
their eyes. In Arctic regions people are transported across
the ice on sleds pulled by dogs. In 1925 Balto, an Eskimo
dog, carried diphtheria serum 600 miles through a
snowstorm in Alaska.
Dogs are intelligent animals, so it is easy to train them. A
dog named Barry rescued 40 persons when they were lost
in the snow on the Saint Bernard Pass in Switzerland
about 150 years ago.

Dogs have also helped in scientific research. The world’s
first space-traveller was a dog named Laika. Russian
scientists sent it up in an artificial Earth satellite in 1957.
Dogs have been film stars. too. A dog called Lassie was
the star in a number of American films.
Dogs can hear and smell better than men, but they cannot
see so well. You may be surprised to learn that dogs are
colour-blind. A dog sees objects first by their movement,
second by their brightness, and third by their shape. A
dog lives on average for about 12 or 13 years. A puppy
aged six months compares in age with a child six years
old. A thirteen-year-old child is not yet grown up, but a
thirteen-year-old dog is a very old dog indeed.

1. Answer these questions:
a)Why do you think the dog is called man’s best friend?
b)Why do you think Caesar led King Edward VII’s funeral
procession?
c) What was Mozart’s profession?
d)Have you a pet? If so, what kind of creature is it and what is
its name?
e) Why did Llewellyn kill his dog Gelert?

f) How do people travel in Arctic regions when the rivers
and lakes are frozen?
g) Can dogs see better than men, or not so well?
h) What are the ways in which dogs notice objects?
i) How many years do dogs usually live?
j) Would you consider a human being of that age old or
young?

2. Say why each of these dogs is famous:
Balto, Barry, Gelert, Laika, Lassie

3. Rewrite the word as instruction:
a) Give nouns corresponding to these adjectives:
active, admit, brave, faithful, musical
b) Give adjectives corresponding to these nouns:
blindness, friendliness, intelligence, obedience, tragedy
c) Give verbs corresponding to these nouns:
decision, qualification, rescue, sight, training

5. From questions for these answers by putting question
words in place of the words in italics and making any
other necessary changes:
a)Example: The Eskimos live in the Arctic regions.
b)Answer: Where do the Eskimos live?
c) Albert Schweitzer was born in 1875.
d)Schweitzer and his wife built a hospital at Lambarene.
e) The sun has nine satellites.

f) The sun’s satellites are called planets.
g) The lion hunts other animals.
h) The pitcher plant gets food by catching insects.
i) Bees make honey from nectar.
j) Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium.

8. Fill the blanks with at or to:
a)Albert Schweitzer and his wife went ----- equatorial
West Africa.
b)Beryl studied Sanskrit -------London university.
c) I will you outside the cinema----6 o’clock.
d)The ‘Titanic’ was lost ---- sea.
e) If you want a degree you must go ----- a university.

7. Rewrite these sentences, putting the words in brackets
in their proper places:
a)The boys had finished the experiment when the bell
rang. (just)
b)You can see beautiful sunsets from the top of that hill.
(sometimes)
c) Have you been to Bombay? (ever)
d)Can don’t go to the theatre. (often)

9. Name the parts of speech of the following words:
obedient, pet, terrier, funeral, procession, composer,
coffin, bravery, hunting, disorder, diphtheria,
snowstorm, movement, compare, shape, see, learn

10. Write whether following underline verbs are transitive or
intransitive:
a)The famous composer Mozart had died.
b)Only one living creature followed his coffin to the grave.
It was his faithful dog.
c) Dogs can hear and smell better than men, but they cannot
see so well.
d)A dog lives on average for about 12 or 13 years.
e) A puppy aged six months compares in age with a child six
years old.
f) A thirteen-year-old child is not yet grown up, but a
thirteen-year-old dog is a very old dog indeed.

Exercises in Reading Comprehension By E. L. Tibbitts (Man's Best Friend)

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