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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #63102 Easy Moose: browse diet, antlers, and boreal range

Read the following passage.

A. The moose is the largest member of the deer family, and a big bull stands taller at the shoulder than the largest saddle horse. Their range stretches from the Alaska boundary across Canada's forests to the eastern tip of Newfoundland and Labrador, and they live in every province and territory except Prince Edward Island. Much of their range lies in the great boreal forest, along the margins of its lakes, muskegs and streams. Canada is thought to have between half a million and a million moose. They also matter to people: moose hunting generates over 500 million dollars in economic activity each year, and moose are a traditional food for Indigenous peoples.

B. Only males, called bulls, grow antlers; females, called cows, do not. The antlers usually begin growing in April, and while they grow they are soft and spongy, with blood vessels running through them under a velvety skin. By early September they have hardened, and the bulls rub the dried velvet off against tree trunks. A mature bull's rack may spread more than 180 centimetres, although a span of 120 to 150 centimetres is more likely. Bulls sometimes fight with their antlers when competing for cows, but a bull with large antlers can usually fend off rivals just by showing them off. In November the antlers begin to fall off.

C. In winter, moose browse almost entirely on twigs and shrubs such as balsam fir, poplar, birch, willow and red osier dogwood, and a large adult eats 15 to 20 kilograms of twigs a day. When food becomes scarce toward spring, they strip bark from trees, especially poplars. In summer they eat leaves and great quantities of water plants, and they sometimes dive 5.5 metres or more for plants growing on a lake bottom. From spring through early autumn they use natural mineral licks, and they also visit roadsides where salt was spread during the winter.

D. Moose also face serious threats. Winter ticks, despite their name, are associated with warmer weather, and tens of thousands of them may feed on the blood of a single moose; calves are especially vulnerable. Meningeal worm, a parasite that white-tailed deer carry without harm, is deadly to moose, and there is a long history of moose dying where the two species overlap. Logging and mining also open up remote moose habitat to hunters and predators. Roads are a danger too: in New Brunswick, about 400 moose are killed by motorists each year, most of them in spring and summer.

E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.

Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.

- 1.
Female moose do not have antlers.

- 2.
A pest that sucks blood does well when the weather is mild.

- 3.
During the cold months, moose eat mainly small branches and bushes.

- 4.
In New Brunswick, several hundred moose die in crashes with cars every year.

- 5.
Bulls lose their antlers in November so that they can save energy for winter.

- 6.
Bulls get rid of the dry covering on their antlers by scraping it on trees.

- 7.
Moose sometimes go deep below the surface of a lake to feed on plants.

- 8.
Ontario has more moose than any other part of Canada.

- 9.
Prince Edward Island is the one part of Canada where no moose live.

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