There are two main kinds of sloth; the two-toed and the three-toed. Of these, the three-toed is considerably the more slothful. It hangs upside down from a branch suspended by hook-like claws at the ends of its long bony arms. It feeds on only one kind of leaf, Cecropia, which happily for the sloth grows in quantity and is easily found.

No predators attack the sloth-few indeed can even reach it-and nothing competes with it for the Cecropia. Lulled by this security, it has sunk into an existence that is only just short of complete torpor. It spends eighteen out of twenty-four hours soundly asleep. It pays such little attention to its personal hygiene that green algae grow on its coarse hair and communities of a parasitic moth live in the depths of its coat producing caterpillars which graze on its mouldy hair. Its muscles are such that it is quite incapable of moving at a speed of over a kilometer an hour even over the shortest distances and the swiftest movement it can make is a sweep of its hooked arm. It is virtually dumb and its hearing is so poor that you can let off a gun within inches of it and its only response will be to turn slowly and blink. Even its sense of smell, though it is better than ours, is very much less acute than that of most mammals. And it sleeps and feeds entirely alone.

1. The purpose of the passage is to

(A)  compare the two-toed and the three-toed sloths

(B)  explain the parasitic relation of a type of moth to the sloth

(C)  describe the behavior of the three-toed sloth

(D)  condemn the way the sloth takes care of itself

2. It can be inferred from the passage that the sloth uses its hooked claws mainly to

(A)  hang on tree branches

(B)  clean its coat

(C)  catch prey

(D)  swing from one place to another

3. What does the sloth eat?

(A)  Caterpillars

(B)  Cecropia

(C)  Moths

(D)  Algae

4. How does the sloth spend most of its time?

(A)  Eating

(B)  Sleeping

(C)  Grooming itself

(D)  Finding food

5. It can be inferred from the passage that if a person makes a loud noise near a sloth, the sloth will

(A)  attack the person

(B)  run away as fast as it can

(C)  show little response

(D)  become deaf

6. The author's discussion of the sloth focuses primarily on the animal's

(A)  solitary nature

(B)  physical handicaps

(C)  diet

(D)  inactivity

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