We have been brought up to …
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We have been brought up to fear insects. We regard them as unnecessary creatures that do more harm than good. Man continually wages war on them, for they contaminate his food, carry diseases or devour his crops. They sting or bite without provocation; they fly uninvited into our rooms on summer nights, or beat against our lighted windows. We live in dread, not only of only unpleasant insects
like Spiders or Wasps, but of quiet harmless ones like moths. Reading about them increases our understanding without dispelling our fears. Knowing that industrious ant lives in a highly organised society does nothing to prevent us from being filled with revulsion when we find hordes of them crawling over a carefully prepared picnic lunch.
2. No matter how much we like honey, or how much we have read about the uncanny sense of direction which bees possess, we have a horror of being stung. Most of our fears are unreasonable, but they are difficult to erase. At the same time, however, insects are strangely fascinating, we enjoy reading about them, especially when we find that, like the praying mantis. The lead perfectly horrible lives. We enjoy staring at them, entranced as they go about their business, unaware (we hope) of our presence. Who has not stood in awe at the sight of a spider pouncing on a fly, or a column of ants triumphantly bearing home an enormous dead beetle?
3. Last summer, I spent days in the garden watching thousands of ants crawling up the trunk of my prized peach tree. The tree has grown against a warm wall on a sheltered side of the house. I am especially proud of it, not only because it has survived several severe winters, but because it occasionally produces lushes peaches. During the summer I noticed that leaves of the tree were beginning to
wither. Clusters of tiny insects called aphis were to be found on the underside of the leaves. They were visited by a large colony of ants which obtained a sort of honey from them. I immediately embarked on an experiment which, even though it failed to get rid of ants, kept me fascinated for 24 hours. I bound the base of the tree with a sticky tape, making it impossible for the ants to reach the aphis. The tape was so sticky that they did not dare to cross it. For a long time, I watched them scurrying around the base of the tree in bewilderment. I even went out at midnight with a torch and noted with satisfaction and surprise that the ants were still swarming around the sticky tape without being able to do anything about it. I got up early next morning hoping to find that the ants had given up in despair. Instead, I saw that they had discovered a new route. They were climbing up the wall of the house and then on to the leaves of the tree. I realized sadly that I had been completely defeated by their ingenuity. The ants had been quick to find an answer to my thoroughly unscientific methods.
Choose the correct answer from choices given
Man wages against insects because
(i) They contaminate food.
(ii) Carry diseases.
(iii) Spoil his crops
(iv) All of the above
The author bound the base of the tree with a sticky tape because
(i) He wanted to get rid of the ants
(ii) He wanted to get rid of aphis
(iii) He wanted to get rid of the ants and the aphis
(iv) None of the above
Answer the following questions.
What is our attitude towards insects?
Why does the writer say that knowing insect as does not help man to change his attitude to insects?
Do you think that attitude of man towards insect as described, is right? Why, why not?
Why does man try to exterminate insects?
What do you think writer wanted to prove by the experiment he conducted on ants?
Select words from the above passage which conveyed the meaning similar to the following.
Drive away (Para 1)
Sudden attack (Para 2)
Cleverness (Para 3)
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