Part I
Main Idea and Supporting Details
Meerkats in Africa live in large groups of 20 to 50 members. The group works together to survive. All members of the group care for the baby meerkats. They take turns babysitting and will protect the young ones from danger. Members of the group also take turns watching out for threats from other animals while the group finds food. If any dangerous animal comes towards the group, the meerkat will bark a warning.
Write the main idea of the paragraph in your own words.
Meerkats like in groups to help each other
Write two supporting ideas for the main idea.
- All meerkats in a group take care of the baby meerkats.
- Meerkats in a group take turns watching out for danger.
Part II
Comprehension – Read and answer the questions
Fungi Are Alive
You might think that all living things are classified as either plants or animals, but there are some mysterious little organisms which are neither, yet are still alive. Many are invisible, hiding deep in the ground or floating silently on the air. Unlike plants, they do not rely on the heat or light of the sun for survival. They have no chlorophyll and do not create food through photosynthesis. They must find a source of nutrients outside themselves. They are very adaptable to any weather conditions. If temperatures fall too low to support life, they go into a deep sleep. This sleep is like the hibernation state that some animals use during the coldest part of the winter. In this inactive state, they wait for living conditions to get better.
These mysterious little creatures are all around us. We call them fungi, and we even use their extraordinary abilities to help us produce some of our favorite foods. If you enjoy biting into a nice, fluffy piece of bread, you can thank the yeast that helped the bread rise. Yes, yeast is a fungus.
If you like mushrooms on your pizza or in your salad, you are eating fungi, too. Because of fungi, we are able to control nasty infections with antibiotics. You may have heard of the most common antibiotic: penicillin. Dr. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 completely by accident. He left his science experiment out on the counter instead of cleaning up after himself. When he came back from his vacation, a strange bluish fungus was growing on it. Penicillin had been discovered.
As people become more aware of better ways to meet our survival needs without harming our planet, we are finding more and more uses for fungi. We can create pesticides to control insects and make detergents that are more Earth friendly. It makes sense that fungi can do things without harming Earth. They have been turning dead plant materials into rich soil for thousands of years. They eat the nutrients that would otherwise be wasted. Without them, we’d be walking around on thick layers of dead leaves and other discarded plant materials.
Although there are many good things about fungi, we must not forget that some fungi are harmful. There are certain varieties that will make us sick or give us skin reactions, like athlete’s foot. It is important to be aware of the various types of fungi. We can benefit from the good fungi and protect ourselves from the harmful ones
Answer the following questions based on the reading passage. Don’t forget to go back to the passage whenever necessary to find or confirm your answers.
- Why can’t fungi make their own food using photosynthesis?
They have no chlorophyll
- Name at least two ways that fungi can be beneficial for us.
They taste good and they control infections.
- Give an example of one way that fungi can be harmful for us.
They can make us sick.
- Find 3 nouns in the text and circle: Example of nouns: plants, sun, organisms, pizza, salad
- Find 3 verbs in the text and underline: Example of verbs: walking, turning, harming, discovered, forget
Part III – Summary
Bones!
A human skeleton is made up of many bones—206, to be exact! Bones give your body structure, let you move in different ways, and protect your internal organs. Bones grow and change during your lifetime just like the other parts of your body. When you are a baby some of your bones are made of a flexible material called cartilage. But as you grow and eat foods containing calcium like milk and cheese, the cartilage grows too and is eventually replaced by bone. It takes 25 years for your bones to get as big as they are going to be.
The bones in your back are called your spine. Your spine holds your body upright, and lets you twist and bend. It also protects the bundle of nerves running from your brain down to all the rest of your body called the spinal cord. There are 26 bones, called vertebrae, in your spine. Attached to the back of your spine are your ribs. Most people have twelve sets of ribs, twelve bones on the right side of the body and twelve on the left. Your ribs protect your heart, lungs, and liver.
Where two bones meet is called a joint. Joints can be fixed or moveable. Your skull has fixed joints, except for your jaw, which is a moveable hinge joint. Other examples of hinge joints are in your elbows and your knees. Where there are hinge joints, your body can only move back and forth in one direction. The other kind of moveable joint is called a ball‐and‐socket joint. These kinds of joints are in your shoulders and your hips. A ball‐and‐socket joint allows movement in every direction. Test it out by swinging your arms all over the place!
You probably think of your head, hand and feet as being single things, but each of these things is made up of many, many bones. Your skull is a set of twenty‐two bones that protect your brain and makes up the structure of your face. Your hands contain fifty‐four bones. There are five separate bones in the center part of your hand, and each finger on your hand has three bones (except for your thumb, which has two). Because of these bones and the joints where they meet, you can do amazing things like pick up a glass, type on a computer, or throw a ball for a dog. Each of your feet has twenty‐six bones and thirty‐three joints.
Summarize the text above:
In total, humans have about 206 bones. In the spine alone, there are 26 bones which are called vertebrae. Without bones, our bodies would not have a structure. Bones protect all our organs. For example, our ribs protect our heart, lungs and liver. Bones start off as cartilage and as we get older, the cartilage forms into bone. It takes 25 years until our bones fully grow. Joints are the points where two bones meet, for example our elbows and knees are where two bones are connected.
CBS Grade 6 