16

Reader's Bank_Level 3_Unit 06                                    Reading Text

How do animals taste their food? Most animals taste food with their tongues, just like us. However, some insects have very different ways of tasting. Take flies, for example. They taste with their feet! They have many special hairs all over their feet. These hairs help them sense flavor. That’s why you sometimes see them walking all over your food. Butterflies and spiders also have this cool trick. Butterflies can find out which flowers are sweet by stepping on them. Spiders use their feet to check if something is good to eat. What about honey bees? They use the tips of their antennae. Their antennae are like little taste testers. They help bees find the honey inside flowers.

17

The Earth is getting hotter. Ice at the North and South Poles is melting like ice cream on a hot day. This makes the sea get higher. Experts say the sea could go up by one meter by 2100.  One country in danger is the Maldives. It is a small island in the Indian Ocean. The highest part of the Maldives is only 2.4 meters above the sea. That’s about  the height of one story of a building! People are scared the country might go under water. But the people of the Maldives have a plan. They want to build up the land using sand. It will be about three meters above sea level. They hope this will help protect the country from rising water.

18

A long time ago, people in Egypt believed that cats were gods. They loved cats and never hurt them. Cats were very special to them. But that love for cats would soon bring trouble! Once, there was a war between Egypt and Persia.  Egypt was so strong that no one thought they could lose. But Persia had a clever plan. They knew about Egypt’s love for cats. So, they brought cats to the battlefield. They even painted cats on their shields. There were cats everywhere. No one had ever seen so many cats on a battlefield! When the Egyptians saw the cats, they were shocked. "We can’t hurt our gods!" they cried helplessly. Because of this, the Egyptians couldn’t fight back. Persia won the battle perfectly. And cats were the reason they won.