Question

. Read the passage and answer the questions that follow

GO TO THE ANT

Human beings have a long been fascinated by the amazing activities of ants .The earliest

reference to ants is to be found in The Book of Proverbs of the Old Testament. Herodatus,

the Greek historian huge ants of India, while pliny , the Roman naturalist, says that ants, like

humans, bury their dead with funeral rites. Greek mythology contains many tales about

ants. One of these concerns the myrmidons, a most industrious people, who claimed their

ancestors were ants—as a clan of the Ashanti tribe of the African west coast still does .Plato,

the well known Greek philosopher, wrote that men who led honest lives were descended

from ants and, on dying, become ants again. In the Middle Ages, people believed that ants

lived together in peace and shared the work fairly . The characters meaning ‘unselfishness’ ,

‘justice ‘and ‘courtesy’ are placed beside the one for ‘insect’ to make the Japanese word for

ant. Ants are common figures in fairy tales. Stories of ants changing into people or people

turning into ants in order to perform a daring deed are known to children all over the world.

Ants also appear in riddles and proverbs. Perhaps the most famous reference to ants in

literature is the well-known story of the grasshopper and the ant. There are many versions,

but the theme is always the same—disregarding the advice of the hard-working ant, theshiftless grasshopper spends the summer singing and dancing instead of storing food and

dies from hunger during the winter. Medieval doctors employed the powerful jaws of ants

to close wounds. This was nothing new—writings from India show that physicians were

doing this as early as 1000 BC. First, the incision was drawn together and an ant was held so

that it could grasp the edges of the skin .Then, the insect’s was pinched off, but the closely

shut jaws remained firmly attached. These were left in place until the wound healed.

Incidentally, this method of closing cuts is still used by some people of the Mediterranean

region and by natives of the jungles of Guyana, in South America. Doctors in the Middle

Ages also used ants to cure deafness, rheumatism, gout and other illness. Formic acid,

secreted by ants when they bite or sting, was also thought to have medicinal value.

The most useful thing ants to do is to destroy millions of other insects each year. While they

do not distinguish between the helpful and harmful ones, they invariably kill far more of the

latter and they have long been used to control orchard pests. Trapped ants were released in

the orange groves of China to eliminate caterpillars as early as the thirteenth century. Their

task was made easier by connecting all the trees with bamboo rods—a practice still

common in Canton. In Germany, foresters, recognizing that certain ants control parasites

that damage timber, had a law passes in 1880 making molesting the nests of these ants a

criminal offence. South American natives gather ants for food. They eats ants either raw or

cooked—when fried the ants are said to taste like bacon . Chocolate covered ants are sold,

wrapped in bright foil, on the fancy food counters of department stores in many large cities!

However, the ‘ant eggs’ used to feed caged birds or goldfish are not eggs, but the cocoons

of a large red ant native to Europe, which are gathered in tremendous quantities and

exported. Household ants which dine on sweet and oily food sorted on pantry shelves are

annoying pests, but rarely are they more than a temporary nuisance. However, in

warehouse and on ships they are a major problem, damaging thousands of dollars worth of

sugar, spices and other commodities every year. Certain carpenter ants are almost as

harmful, for they do not nest in decayed logs. Instead , they bore into house beams and

rafters and often weaken them to such an extent that the entire building collapses .Most

scientists feel that, in general , ants do more harm than good. But even those who think the

damage they cause far outweighs the good things they do agree that, of all insects, ants are

the most intelligent and have the most fascinating habits, and that their highly organized

societies engage in activities that parallel those of humans.

i. What did Plato write about the three relationship between humans and ants? 2

ii. What is the moral of the story about ant and grasshopper ? 2

iii. What use did ants have in the field of medicine? 2

iv. Give two ways in which ants can be a hazard. 2

v. Find the words that is antonym of 4

a. Indolent

b. Detained

c. Frequently

d. creat​

Answer 1

Explanation:

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