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2016 ‫מועד אפריל‬ - 39 - ‫ פרק ראשון‬- ‫ אנגלית‬

Reading Comprehension

This part consists of two passages, each followed by several related questions. For each
question, choose the most appropriate answer based on the text.

Text I (Questions 13-17)

(1) The hippopotamus, one of the world's most aggressive animals, can kill with one
snap of its powerful jaws. It is no wonder, then, that recent visitors to the zoo in Zurich,
Switzerland, were horrified to see a zebra with its head in a hippo's enormous mouth.
The hippo, however, was not eating the zebra for lunch. As it turns out, the hippo was

(5) having its teeth cleaned.

Keeping a hippo's teeth clean is a huge task. In the wild, hippos have an ingenious
way of maintaining good dental hygiene. They visit so-called cleaning stations – large
ponds or watering holes – where fish swim into their mouths and eat the grass and
bacteria stuck to their teeth.

(10) Unfortunately, there are no cleaning stations in zoos. Furthermore, unlike hippos in
the wild, hippos living in captivity have a diet of vegetables and fruit, large pieces of
which get caught in the gaps between their teeth. To prevent decay, zookeepers must
clean their hippos' teeth several times a week. At Shanghai Zoo, workers once did this
job using a broom but recently switched to a specially made 120-centimeter-long

(15) toothbrush, which can reach all the way to the back of the animals' mouths. The Zurich
zookeepers have chosen a different approach: taking a lesson from nature, they let the
zebras do the work.

Questions

13. A good title for this text is -

(1) Dental Care for Hippos
(2) Hippos in the Wild and in Captivity
(3) The Zebra and the Hippo: Natural Partners
(4) The Hippo: One of the Most Aggressive Animals

)‫© כל הזכויות שמורות למרכז ארצי לבחינות ולהערכה (ע"ר‬

.‫ בלא אישור בכתב מהמרכז הארצי לבחינות ולהערכה‬- ‫ כולה או חלקים ממנה‬- ‫ או ללמדה‬,‫אין להעתיק או להפיץ בחינה זו או קטעים ממנה בכל צורה ובכל אמצעי‬