Reading Comprehension — The Silkworm

Read two short passages about the silkworm and its cocoon and answer ten questions.

The Silkworm

The silkworm is a pale caterpillar about the size of your little finger. It eats only one thing: the leaves of the mulberry tree.

Farmers raise thousands of silkworms indoors on trays of fresh leaves. The caterpillars are so hungry that the sound of their jaws is like rain falling on leaves.

After four or five weeks the silkworm stops eating. It climbs onto a twig and begins to spin. Silk comes out of a tiny hole under its lip as a sticky liquid, which hardens into a thread. The silkworm swings its head up and down and from side to side, wrapping itself in thread. After three or four days it is shut inside a silk case the size of a pigeon's egg. This case is called a cocoon.

Out of the Cocoon

Inside the cocoon, the caterpillar wriggles out of its old skin. What is left is a smooth brown case shaped like an almond. It is called a chrysalis. If you look closely, you can see the shape of folded wings.

About two weeks later the chrysalis splits open and a moth comes out. Its wings are crumpled and wet, and its legs are wobbly. But it is still trapped inside the cocoon!

The moth has no teeth and no strong claws. So how does it get out? It wets one end of the cocoon to soften the silk, then pushes and scratches until it makes a hole.

The silkworm moth is pale and plump. It does not eat, and it does not fly from flower to flower. It lays its eggs and then it dies. Next year, the eggs hatch into new silkworms.

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