Reading Comprehension — The Ants' Shelter

Read two short passages about ants and their tiny cows and answer ten questions.

The Ants' Shelter

Sometimes ants find a few of their tiny "cows" at the bottom of a clump of grass. Then they build the cows a shelter.

First the ants dig away a little earth to uncover the top of the roots. The roots make a frame to build on. Next they pile up grains of damp earth, one by one, and shape them into a roof over the cows. They leave little doors so they can come and go.

Inside, it is cool and quiet. The cows stay stuck to the stem, drinking sap, and the ants can drink their sweet milk without leaving home.

The shelter is not strong. You could knock it over just by blowing hard. But the ants only need it for a little while, like a shepherd's hut in the mountains in summer.

Sharing the Milk

An ant that finds the cows drinks some milk first. It needs its strength. But then it remembers the hungry ants back home, and it fills its stomach right to the top.

On the way home it meets a carpenter ant carrying a straw. The carpenter drops the straw. The two ants touch mouths, as if kissing, and the milk ant passes over a tiny drop. Now the carpenter can work hard again! The milk ant moves on, sharing a drop with every hungry worker until its stomach is empty.

Deep underground there are more hungry mouths: the young ants. They hatch from eggs as tiny white grubs with no legs. They cannot even move. The ants feed them, mouthful by mouthful, until they grow and change into ants.

Adapted from The Story-book of Science by Jean-Henri Fabre (1917).