Reading Plus. Comparative Reading. 9B. Lesson 2

Paragraph 1: Sometimes an adult bird stays in its nest when it rains. An adult bird needs to keep the rain off its baby birds. Baby birds do not have long feathers. An adult bird tries to keep a baby bird dry. How? It sits on the baby bird!

Paragraph 2: Horses often have a special place they like to be in a storm. That place may be under a tree. It may be in a safe, dry barn. Some horses may stand in the middle of a field. Will it stay dry this way? No way! But some horses are okay with being wet, even if the rain is very cold.

Paragraph 1: Serena and Venus Williams are sisters and tennis champions. They played together in a Grand Slam doubles event in 1999 and won. The sisters then won gold medals at the 2000 Olympics. As single players, the sisters have played against each other 27 times throughout their tennis careers.

Paragraph 2: Before Venus and Serena, the last time two sisters played each other in a tennis final was 1884. Sisters Maud and Lilian Watson were competing for the Ladies’ Singles tennis title. Maud defeated her older sister and won the title.

Paragraph 1: Bakers make sure a kitchen has the correct supplies and equipment for baking. They make sure they keep their workplace clean and safe. A baker may own a bakery or work for someone who does. If a baker works in a restaurant, he or she works for the chef.

Paragraph 2: A chef is a person who is in charge of all food preparation. He or she may own a restaurant or may work for another person who owns one. A chef may also work in other places that serve food. For example, he or she may go to people’s homes and cook for them

Paragraph 1: All living beings take in some kind of food from the environment. Plants do not eat food the way a person does, of course. They take in water through their roots and light through their leaves. Then special cells in the leaves mix the light and water to create food the plants use to grow.

Paragraph 2: All living things grow and get bigger. When a living thing takes in food, the food gets changed into energy. Some of the energy is used to grow. Baby animals, such as kittens, are very small at first. But they grow and get larger and become adult cats.