Pets and animals. Reading test

Read the text and choose the best heading for it. Although pit bulls, German shepherds and rottweilers are often considered the most aggressive breeds of dog, any dog of any breed can be aggressive. Research shows that training and socialization are more important than breed in predicting aggression. According to the Smithsonian Institution, most researchers report that any puppy can grow into an aggressive dog in future. Dominance-based training methods are very often linked to increased aggressive behaviours.

Read the text and choose the best heading for it. While most dogs, by today’s standards, would be considered to be of the domestic variety, there are many different species of canines that live in the wild and are feral. Some examples of feral dogs are coyotes, wolves, jackals and dingoes. These feral species can be found throughout the world in some parts of North America, Africa, Asia and Europe. In some cases, these dogs are dangerous to human. Canines like wolves and coyotes are often a nuisance to farmers and livestock.

Read the text and choose the best heading for it. While any dog breed or mix can be affectionate, some breeds, such as retrievers, have a reputation for being extra friendly. Other dogs like huskies require a little more interaction and attention in order to earn their affection, which gives them a less-affectionate reputation. All dogs require attention and the proper training and care. German shepherds, for example, are so caring and affectionate of their owners that they experience separation anxiety when left alone for too long.

Read the text and choose the best heading for it. Those who prefer small dogs often choose breeds, such as Spitz, Maltese and toy poodle, which all typically weigh less than 5 pounds. Many of these breeds are referred to as “toy” versions of a particular breed. Breeders selectively breed small or toy-sized dogs to create even smaller dogs that they classify as teacup size. The Yorkshire dogs, commonly known as Yorkies, were bred to be rat hunters. Even with their small stature, Yorkies may try to pick fights with larger dogs.

Read the text and choose the best heading for it. The strongest sense for dogs is smell. In comparison to humans, dogs have almost 25% more scent receptors. As a result, dogs have an excellent sense of smell. Just as many as humans rely on their sense of sight to navigate, dogs rely on their sense of smell to understand and explore their surroundings. Dogs can smell scent about 100,000 times more acutely than humans. Because of their acute and accurate sense of smell, some breeds of dog are unique indeed.

Read the text and choose the best heading for it. The word “dog” refers to a species of animals within the canine family. Dogs typically live within households and are owned by people as pets or as working dogs, which makes them domestic for the most part. There are some very friendly dogs that are great for families with children of all ages. Since dogs can pick up scents that humans cannot detect, they are also valuable additions to law enforcements teams, where they perform activities like smelling for drugs and weapons.

Read the text and choose the best heading for it. The most common criterion for measuring intelligence in dogs is how easy the dog is to train. Researchers look at how quickly the dog can figure out what the trainer is asking for, how likely the dog is to repeat the action, how many commands the dog can learn and how long it can retain a learned command without reinforcement. However, these results can be skewed by the different ways some breeds interact with people. The most intelligent breeds of dog are working breeds.

Read the text and complete it with the missing parts. Do jellyfish sleep? Worms and fish do it. Birds and bees do it. But do jellyfish fall asleep? It was after midnight where the jellyfish were kept. They left the lights off and walked through the room by the glow of their cellphones. The students did not tell anyone that they were doing this. The secret they were keeping was a “totally crazy” experiment aimed at finding out whether jellyfish sleep. A few weeks before, whether jellyfish needed to sleep. “Of course not,” said one of them. “Sleep helps . Jellyfish are so simple they don’t even have brains. How could they possibly share the need to sleep?” The others weren’t so sure, but they wanted to find out. The three students designed an experiment to test different behaviors and see if the jellyfish were asleep. They watched the animals to see how they moved, and when they were resting. It turned out that the jellyfish moved about 30 percent less at night. It was also harder to get their attention. Months of late-night studying led to amazing results. Young scientists reported sleeplike behavior. This made it the first animal without a brain known to do so. The results suggest life, as the jellyfish group of animals first arose about 700 million years ago, and has stuck with us ever since.

Read the text and choose the correct option. A cat’s adventures When we first got our cat Gina, I thought taking care of her would be a rather leisurely activity. But Gina has the most peculiar of behaviours, and I’m not just referring to her tendency to chase after the occasional trapped house fly or her love of licking drips from the sink tap. She does something that I imagine few other cats in the world would do. If you can believe this, she commutes by bus every single day to the zoo to gaze at wild animals. Gina’s story is so incredible she’s even been featured on the national TV news. She’s been filmed hopping onto the bus, which comes like clockwork every day to the stop two blocks down the street from our house. It doesn’t even pass by our house; I can’t imagine how she found the stop. Actually, there are many things I can’t imagine about this scenario, such as how she knows the bus schedule or where the stop for the zoo is. Were never even taken her to the zoo. Why on earth would we? And surely we would have gone by car rather than by bus if we had. It’s anyone’s guess how long she had been doing it before we realised what was going on. She’d scratch at the door in the morning for us to let her out. I would see her trot out of the garden and down the street, but I never thought anything of it. After a while, I began to notice that she’d be gone for several hours, but would always return at 4 pm, hungry. I started to suspect something when it occurred to me that she was leaving the house at exactly the same time every day. I decided to investigate this odd routine. One day I waited until she was just out of sight. I snuck out of the house, careful not to make any noise to disturb her. I left the property from the same place as she did. I spotted her a block down, her tail fluffing up in the air as she looked both ways before crossing to the next block. ‘We teach our kids that, not our cats!’ I thought to myself. At any rate, when she got a bit further ahead, I saw her arrive at the bus stop. I stood very still, not taking my eyes off her for a second. Then the bus came, the doors opened, and she just jumped right in. I couldn’t believe it! Standing there dumbfounded, I realised something that made my eyes widen and my eyebrows rise - there were no passengers waiting at the stop. Why did the bus even stop? So, in my distressed state, my knee-jerk reaction was to, well, run after the bus! I ran like an Olympic sprinter, and luckily there was little traffic at the junctions. I finally caught up with the bus at a red light. I banged on the door, the driver opened it and there was Gina, perched on the dashboard. She saw me and miaowed. ‘My cat! I shrieked. ‘How is this possible?’ The driver said she had been doing it for months, getting off at the zoo, and getting back on later in the day. I grabbed her, took her home and apologised for my frantic behaviour, but the next day she was off again, so I decided to pay a visit to the zoo, to see just exactly what she was getting up to on the next stage of her daily adventure... 7. ‘This’ in the last paragraph refers to...

Read the text and choose the correct option. A cat’s adventures When we first got our cat Gina, I thought taking care of her would be a rather leisurely activity. But Gina has the most peculiar of behaviours, and I’m not just referring to her tendency to chase after the occasional trapped house fly or her love of licking drips from the sink tap. She does something that I imagine few other cats in the world would do. If you can believe this, she commutes by bus every single day to the zoo to gaze at wild animals. Gina’s story is so incredible she’s even been featured on the national TV news. She’s been filmed hopping onto the bus, which comes like clockwork every day to the stop two blocks down the street from our house. It doesn’t even pass by our house; I can’t imagine how she found the stop. Actually, there are many things I can’t imagine about this scenario, such as how she knows the bus schedule or where the stop for the zoo is. Were never even taken her to the zoo. Why on earth would we? And surely we would have gone by car rather than by bus if we had. It’s anyone’s guess how long she had been doing it before we realised what was going on. She’d scratch at the door in the morning for us to let her out. I would see her trot out of the garden and down the street, but I never thought anything of it. After a while, I began to notice that she’d be gone for several hours, but would always return at 4 pm, hungry. I started to suspect something when it occurred to me that she was leaving the house at exactly the same time every day. I decided to investigate this odd routine. One day I waited until she was just out of sight. I snuck out of the house, careful not to make any noise to disturb her. I left the property from the same place as she did. I spotted her a block down, her tail fluffing up in the air as she looked both ways before crossing to the next block. ‘We teach our kids that, not our cats!’ I thought to myself. At any rate, when she got a bit further ahead, I saw her arrive at the bus stop. I stood very still, not taking my eyes off her for a second. Then the bus came, the doors opened, and she just jumped right in. I couldn’t believe it! Standing there dumbfounded, I realised something that made my eyes widen and my eyebrows rise - there were no passengers waiting at the stop. Why did the bus even stop? So, in my distressed state, my knee-jerk reaction was to, well, run after the bus! I ran like an Olympic sprinter, and luckily there was little traffic at the junctions. I finally caught up with the bus at a red light. I banged on the door, the driver opened it and there was Gina, perched on the dashboard. She saw me and miaowed. ‘My cat! I shrieked. ‘How is this possible?’ The driver said she had been doing it for months, getting off at the zoo, and getting back on later in the day. I grabbed her, took her home and apologised for my frantic behaviour, but the next day she was off again, so I decided to pay a visit to the zoo, to see just exactly what she was getting up to on the next stage of her daily adventure... 2. Which of the following is true about Gina’s zoo trips?

Read the text and choose the correct option. A cat’s adventures When we first got our cat Gina, I thought taking care of her would be a rather leisurely activity. But Gina has the most peculiar of behaviours, and I’m not just referring to her tendency to chase after the occasional trapped house fly or her love of licking drips from the sink tap. She does something that I imagine few other cats in the world would do. If you can believe this, she commutes by bus every single day to the zoo to gaze at wild animals. Gina’s story is so incredible she’s even been featured on the national TV news. She’s been filmed hopping onto the bus, which comes like clockwork every day to the stop two blocks down the street from our house. It doesn’t even pass by our house; I can’t imagine how she found the stop. Actually, there are many things I can’t imagine about this scenario, such as how she knows the bus schedule or where the stop for the zoo is. Were never even taken her to the zoo. Why on earth would we? And surely we would have gone by car rather than by bus if we had. It’s anyone’s guess how long she had been doing it before we realised what was going on. She’d scratch at the door in the morning for us to let her out. I would see her trot out of the garden and down the street, but I never thought anything of it. After a while, I began to notice that she’d be gone for several hours, but would always return at 4 pm, hungry. I started to suspect something when it occurred to me that she was leaving the house at exactly the same time every day. I decided to investigate this odd routine. One day I waited until she was just out of sight. I snuck out of the house, careful not to make any noise to disturb her. I left the property from the same place as she did. I spotted her a block down, her tail fluffing up in the air as she looked both ways before crossing to the next block. ‘We teach our kids that, not our cats!’ I thought to myself. At any rate, when she got a bit further ahead, I saw her arrive at the bus stop. I stood very still, not taking my eyes off her for a second. Then the bus came, the doors opened, and she just jumped right in. I couldn’t believe it! Standing there dumbfounded, I realised something that made my eyes widen and my eyebrows rise - there were no passengers waiting at the stop. Why did the bus even stop? So, in my distressed state, my knee-jerk reaction was to, well, run after the bus! I ran like an Olympic sprinter, and luckily there was little traffic at the junctions. I finally caught up with the bus at a red light. I banged on the door, the driver opened it and there was Gina, perched on the dashboard. She saw me and miaowed. ‘My cat! I shrieked. ‘How is this possible?’ The driver said she had been doing it for months, getting off at the zoo, and getting back on later in the day. I grabbed her, took her home and apologised for my frantic behaviour, but the next day she was off again, so I decided to pay a visit to the zoo, to see just exactly what she was getting up to on the next stage of her daily adventure... 1. The author originally thought that cats_______.

Read the text and choose the correct option. A cat’s adventures When we first got our cat Gina, I thought taking care of her would be a rather leisurely activity. But Gina has the most peculiar of behaviours, and I’m not just referring to her tendency to chase after the occasional trapped house fly or her love of licking drips from the sink tap. She does something that I imagine few other cats in the world would do. If you can believe this, she commutes by bus every single day to the zoo to gaze at wild animals. Gina’s story is so incredible she’s even been featured on the national TV news. She’s been filmed hopping onto the bus, which comes like clockwork every day to the stop two blocks down the street from our house. It doesn’t even pass by our house; I can’t imagine how she found the stop. Actually, there are many things I can’t imagine about this scenario, such as how she knows the bus schedule or where the stop for the zoo is. Were never even taken her to the zoo. Why on earth would we? And surely we would have gone by car rather than by bus if we had. It’s anyone’s guess how long she had been doing it before we realised what was going on. She’d scratch at the door in the morning for us to let her out. I would see her trot out of the garden and down the street, but I never thought anything of it. After a while, I began to notice that she’d be gone for several hours, but would always return at 4 pm, hungry. I started to suspect something when it occurred to me that she was leaving the house at exactly the same time every day. I decided to investigate this odd routine. One day I waited until she was just out of sight. I snuck out of the house, careful not to make any noise to disturb her. I left the property from the same place as she did. I spotted her a block down, her tail fluffing up in the air as she looked both ways before crossing to the next block. ‘We teach our kids that, not our cats!’ I thought to myself. At any rate, when she got a bit further ahead, I saw her arrive at the bus stop. I stood very still, not taking my eyes off her for a second. Then the bus came, the doors opened, and she just jumped right in. I couldn’t believe it! Standing there dumbfounded, I realised something that made my eyes widen and my eyebrows rise - there were no passengers waiting at the stop. Why did the bus even stop? So, in my distressed state, my knee-jerk reaction was to, well, run after the bus! I ran like an Olympic sprinter, and luckily there was little traffic at the junctions. I finally caught up with the bus at a red light. I banged on the door, the driver opened it and there was Gina, perched on the dashboard. She saw me and miaowed. ‘My cat! I shrieked. ‘How is this possible?’ The driver said she had been doing it for months, getting off at the zoo, and getting back on later in the day. I grabbed her, took her home and apologised for my frantic behaviour, but the next day she was off again, so I decided to pay a visit to the zoo, to see just exactly what she was getting up to on the next stage of her daily adventure... 4. How did the author follow her cat to the bus stop?

Read the text and choose the correct option. A cat’s adventures When we first got our cat Gina, I thought taking care of her would be a rather leisurely activity. But Gina has the most peculiar of behaviours, and I’m not just referring to her tendency to chase after the occasional trapped house fly or her love of licking drips from the sink tap. She does something that I imagine few other cats in the world would do. If you can believe this, she commutes by bus every single day to the zoo to gaze at wild animals. Gina’s story is so incredible she’s even been featured on the national TV news. She’s been filmed hopping onto the bus, which comes like clockwork every day to the stop two blocks down the street from our house. It doesn’t even pass by our house; I can’t imagine how she found the stop. Actually, there are many things I can’t imagine about this scenario, such as how she knows the bus schedule or where the stop for the zoo is. Were never even taken her to the zoo. Why on earth would we? And surely we would have gone by car rather than by bus if we had. It’s anyone’s guess how long she had been doing it before we realised what was going on. She’d scratch at the door in the morning for us to let her out. I would see her trot out of the garden and down the street, but I never thought anything of it. After a while, I began to notice that she’d be gone for several hours, but would always return at 4 pm, hungry. I started to suspect something when it occurred to me that she was leaving the house at exactly the same time every day. I decided to investigate this odd routine. One day I waited until she was just out of sight. I snuck out of the house, careful not to make any noise to disturb her. I left the property from the same place as she did. I spotted her a block down, her tail fluffing up in the air as she looked both ways before crossing to the next block. ‘We teach our kids that, not our cats!’ I thought to myself. At any rate, when she got a bit further ahead, I saw her arrive at the bus stop. I stood very still, not taking my eyes off her for a second. Then the bus came, the doors opened, and she just jumped right in. I couldn’t believe it! Standing there dumbfounded, I realised something that made my eyes widen and my eyebrows rise - there were no passengers waiting at the stop. Why did the bus even stop? So, in my distressed state, my knee-jerk reaction was to, well, run after the bus! I ran like an Olympic sprinter, and luckily there was little traffic at the junctions. I finally caught up with the bus at a red light. I banged on the door, the driver opened it and there was Gina, perched on the dashboard. She saw me and miaowed. ‘My cat! I shrieked. ‘How is this possible?’ The driver said she had been doing it for months, getting off at the zoo, and getting back on later in the day. I grabbed her, took her home and apologised for my frantic behaviour, but the next day she was off again, so I decided to pay a visit to the zoo, to see just exactly what she was getting up to on the next stage of her daily adventure... 6. What does the expression ‘knee-jerk reaction’ in the fifth paragraph mean?

Read the text and choose the correct option. A cat’s adventures When we first got our cat Gina, I thought taking care of her would be a rather leisurely activity. But Gina has the most peculiar of behaviours, and I’m not just referring to her tendency to chase after the occasional trapped house fly or her love of licking drips from the sink tap. She does something that I imagine few other cats in the world would do. If you can believe this, she commutes by bus every single day to the zoo to gaze at wild animals. Gina’s story is so incredible she’s even been featured on the national TV news. She’s been filmed hopping onto the bus, which comes like clockwork every day to the stop two blocks down the street from our house. It doesn’t even pass by our house; I can’t imagine how she found the stop. Actually, there are many things I can’t imagine about this scenario, such as how she knows the bus schedule or where the stop for the zoo is. Were never even taken her to the zoo. Why on earth would we? And surely we would have gone by car rather than by bus if we had. It’s anyone’s guess how long she had been doing it before we realised what was going on. She’d scratch at the door in the morning for us to let her out. I would see her trot out of the garden and down the street, but I never thought anything of it. After a while, I began to notice that she’d be gone for several hours, but would always return at 4 pm, hungry. I started to suspect something when it occurred to me that she was leaving the house at exactly the same time every day. I decided to investigate this odd routine. One day I waited until she was just out of sight. I snuck out of the house, careful not to make any noise to disturb her. I left the property from the same place as she did. I spotted her a block down, her tail fluffing up in the air as she looked both ways before crossing to the next block. ‘We teach our kids that, not our cats!’ I thought to myself. At any rate, when she got a bit further ahead, I saw her arrive at the bus stop. I stood very still, not taking my eyes off her for a second. Then the bus came, the doors opened, and she just jumped right in. I couldn’t believe it! Standing there dumbfounded, I realised something that made my eyes widen and my eyebrows rise - there were no passengers waiting at the stop. Why did the bus even stop? So, in my distressed state, my knee-jerk reaction was to, well, run after the bus! I ran like an Olympic sprinter, and luckily there was little traffic at the junctions. I finally caught up with the bus at a red light. I banged on the door, the driver opened it and there was Gina, perched on the dashboard. She saw me and miaowed. ‘My cat! I shrieked. ‘How is this possible?’ The driver said she had been doing it for months, getting off at the zoo, and getting back on later in the day. I grabbed her, took her home and apologised for my frantic behaviour, but the next day she was off again, so I decided to pay a visit to the zoo, to see just exactly what she was getting up to on the next stage of her daily adventure... 3. The author realised there was something funny about Gina when...

Read the text and choose the correct option. A cat’s adventures When we first got our cat Gina, I thought taking care of her would be a rather leisurely activity. But Gina has the most peculiar of behaviours, and I’m not just referring to her tendency to chase after the occasional trapped house fly or her love of licking drips from the sink tap. She does something that I imagine few other cats in the world would do. If you can believe this, she commutes by bus every single day to the zoo to gaze at wild animals. Gina’s story is so incredible she’s even been featured on the national TV news. She’s been filmed hopping onto the bus, which comes like clockwork every day to the stop two blocks down the street from our house. It doesn’t even pass by our house; I can’t imagine how she found the stop. Actually, there are many things I can’t imagine about this scenario, such as how she knows the bus schedule or where the stop for the zoo is. Were never even taken her to the zoo. Why on earth would we? And surely we would have gone by car rather than by bus if we had. It’s anyone’s guess how long she had been doing it before we realised what was going on. She’d scratch at the door in the morning for us to let her out. I would see her trot out of the garden and down the street, but I never thought anything of it. After a while, I began to notice that she’d be gone for several hours, but would always return at 4 pm, hungry. I started to suspect something when it occurred to me that she was leaving the house at exactly the same time every day. I decided to investigate this odd routine. One day I waited until she was just out of sight. I snuck out of the house, careful not to make any noise to disturb her. I left the property from the same place as she did. I spotted her a block down, her tail fluffing up in the air as she looked both ways before crossing to the next block. ‘We teach our kids that, not our cats!’ I thought to myself. At any rate, when she got a bit further ahead, I saw her arrive at the bus stop. I stood very still, not taking my eyes off her for a second. Then the bus came, the doors opened, and she just jumped right in. I couldn’t believe it! Standing there dumbfounded, I realised something that made my eyes widen and my eyebrows rise - there were no passengers waiting at the stop. Why did the bus even stop? So, in my distressed state, my knee-jerk reaction was to, well, run after the bus! I ran like an Olympic sprinter, and luckily there was little traffic at the junctions. I finally caught up with the bus at a red light. I banged on the door, the driver opened it and there was Gina, perched on the dashboard. She saw me and miaowed. ‘My cat! I shrieked. ‘How is this possible?’ The driver said she had been doing it for months, getting off at the zoo, and getting back on later in the day. I grabbed her, took her home and apologised for my frantic behaviour, but the next day she was off again, so I decided to pay a visit to the zoo, to see just exactly what she was getting up to on the next stage of her daily adventure... 5. The author’s face showed the greatest reaction when...