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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #63103 Easy River otters: hunting, dens, and play

Read the following passage.

A. The North American river otter is a semi-aquatic mammal found across most of Canada and the United States. It can live anywhere with a steady food supply and easy access to water, including rivers, lakes, marshes, swamps and estuaries. Its body is long and streamlined, with short legs and a thick, tapered tail, and it can close its nostrils underwater. Dense, soft fur keeps it warm in cold water. River otters are sensitive to pollution and tend to disappear from areas where the water is polluted. They were wiped out in parts of their range, but reintroduction and conservation work have helped their numbers stabilize.

B. Otters hunt mainly in the water, taking fish, frogs and other amphibians, turtles, crayfish and crabs. They usually catch slow fish such as suckers rather than fast game fish. Long, sensitive whiskers help them find prey in dark water, where smell, sight and hearing are weaker. A river otter can stay underwater for up to eight minutes. It normally eats small prey right away in the water and carries larger catches to land. Because its metabolism runs very high, an otter has to eat a great deal every day.

C. Otter dens are usually dug into the bank of a stream, but otters also move into burrows left by other mammals, hollows under logs and old beaver lodges. A den has an underwater entrance and a tunnel that leads to a nest chamber lined with leaves, grass, moss, bark and hair. There a female gives birth to between one and six young, most often two or three. The pups open their eyes at about one month, come out of the den at about two months and are weaned at about three months. The young can swim by instinct, but their mother has to coax them into the water the first time.

D. Otters are known for play, and watchers may see them sliding down riverbanks, burrowing through snow or playing in the water. This play seems to strengthen social bonds and to help young otters practise hunting. Otters normally hunt at night, yet they can be spotted at any time of day, and one that meets a person face to face may stand its ground rather than run. On Prince Edward Island, river otters are being spotted again nearly 100 years after they disappeared. The provincial wildlife biologist there asks anyone who sees one to report the sighting.

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.
Otters are able to hold their breath beneath the surface for several minutes.

- 2.
Otters sometimes raise their young in homes first made by other animals.

- 3.
People can spot otters at any hour, though the animals mostly look for food after dark.

- 4.
Otters must eat a lot because their bodies use up energy so fast.

- 5.
River otters are found in most parts of Canada.

- 6.
Otters slide down snowy slopes mainly as a quick way to get around.

- 7.
Otters tend to leave places where the water has become unclean.

- 8.
People who see an otter in Prince Edward Island are being asked by a scientist to report it.

- 9.
An otter can shut its nose while swimming below the surface.

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