Official Examination Centre No.

ES815

Advanced Reading – Bitten by a Serpent

Read the text and answer the questions A-D

Three-year-old Bobby Mcgee was napping yesterday in his Buzz Light-year costume yesterday
at his family's Carry St. apartment when he shot up in bed screaming. A 3-foot-long black-and-
white snake was coiled around his left foot and had just bitten one of his little piggies.

"The baby-sitter freaked out," said Bobby’s father, John Mcgee, who, along with his wife,
Janice, was at work when the reptile made its appearance about 4 p.m.

The horrified baby-sitter called 911 and the building's doorman. The doorman and two cable
TV workers helped pry the snake off the boy's foot and threw it into one of the boys’ toy chests.

Emergency services rushed Bobby to RVA medical centre, where his parents said he spent
two hours attached to a heart monitor as a precaution in case the snake was poisonous.

It wasn't. Experts at the snakebite treatment centre at the medical college of Virginia in
Richmond, where the police took the critter, determined it was a non-venomous West Virginia
Racer.

But how did it end up in Bobby’s bed?

A little sleuthing determined that the serpent escaped two weeks ago from its cage in the
apartment of a doctor whose family lives four floors above the Mcgees. The apologetic owner
said his son's pet snake likely travelled down the radiator pipes and into his neighbour's
apartment.

"It's a very docile, very harmless snake," he said. "Our family handles it all the time."

Mcgee, 42, a fine arts publisher, said he believed the pet was simply hungry after two weeks of
perusing. Bobby's mother, Janice Mcgee, 37, said her son seems to have got over his fright by
thinking of himself as a hero space ranger as he rode in the back of the police cruiser to the
hospital.

"I told Bobby he's a pretty snake, a nice pet snake who got out of his cage," Janice Mcgee
said. "But he asked, 'Why did he bite my little piggy, Mamma?' And I said, 'Because he saw it
didn’t want it to go Weweweweeee all the way home.'"

CL GRANADA, S. L. C/ Puentezuelas, nº 32, 1ª Planta - 18002 Granada. Teléf.: 958 53 52 53 Fax: 958 25 15 46
E-mail: info@clgranada.com Web: www.clgranada.com
Rev: 10/01-01-17
 Official Examination Centre No. ES815

1. What did the nanny do?

a. She ran out of the apartment.
b. She took the snake off Bobby's arm.
c. She phoned for help.
d. She called the television company.

2. What do we learn about the snake?

a. It was poisonous.
b. It had escaped from a zoo.
c. It was about a metre long.
d. It had escaped earlier in the afternoon.

3. Which of these statements is true?

a. Bobby was awake when the snake arrived.
b. Bobby’s father was working and his mother was at home.
c. Bobby needed a heart machine to stay alive for two hours.
d. The snake is used to being touched.

4. What does Teddy think now of the snake attack?

a. He was attacked because the snake was scared of him.
b. He was attacked because he was asleep.
c. He was attacked because the snake was hungry.
d. He was attacked because the snake didn’t want his toe to escape.

CL GRANADA, S. L. C/ Puentezuelas, nº 32, 1ª Planta - 18002 Granada. Teléf.: 958 53 52 53 Fax: 958 25 15 46
E-mail: info@clgranada.com Web: www.clgranada.com
Rev: 10/01-01-17
 Official Examination Centre No. ES815

ANSWERS
1 -: c

2 -: c

3 -: d

4-:d

CL GRANADA, S. L. C/ Puentezuelas, nº 32, 1ª Planta - 18002 Granada. Teléf.: 958 53 52 53 Fax: 958 25 15 46
E-mail: info@clgranada.com Web: www.clgranada.com
Rev: 10/01-01-17