Rat Quiz

As well aware, the year of 2020 is the year of the rat, the first animal in the Chinese Zodiac. Let us check interesting facts about the murine friend! Fill in the given blanks below.

(source from https://www.terminix.com/blog/education/facts-about-rats/   &  http://www.havahart.com/rat-facts#behavior & https://pets.amerikanki.com/11-interesting-facts-about-mice-and-rats/)

   1.   Rats are very _____________, giving birth to about 6 to 10 pups, 3-6 times per year.

   2.   _______________in nature, rats generally emerge at dusk to do most of their activity and feeding throughout the night.

   3.   A rat’s _________________ never stop growing.

   4.   Among the U.S. cities, ____________ tops the list of the most rat-infested and ________________ was second, followed by Washington, D.C.

   5.   Rats enjoy socializing with others and can even _______________ when they are playful.

   6.   Rats have ______________and different personalities like humans. Some rats tend to be hard-working, others tend to dilly-dally and have fun. Yet others seem to spend all their time entertaining others with funny antics.

   7.   A male mouse is called a _____________ and a female mouse a doe. A group of mice is called a ______________.

   8.   Mice in the wild have short ________________. They usually only live for about five months, mostly because of predators such as cats, snakes and foxes. In a lab setting, mice can live for up to two years.

   9.   MIT neuroscientist Matthew Wilson revealed in 2001 that rats and mice _____________, too – just the same as humans do. They have REM sleep times and neurons in their brains that fire in ways that are familiar to scientists studying human _______________  activity.

  10.               Contrary to popular belief about rats, they are one of the __________________ animals around. They have very rough tongues that they constantly use it on their coats to groom themselves. As long as you keep the cage of a pet clean, you should have no reason to worry about dirtiness.

Answer Keys

   

   

   1.  Prolific

   2.  Nocturnal

   3.  Teeth

   4.  Chicago, NYC

   5.  Laugh

   6.  Individuality

   7.  buck, mischief

   8.  lifespans

   9.  dream

   10.  cleanest

Let's practice the "/ æ /" sound as in "apple" or "family" by this NPR word game!

This week, let us try the fun word puzzle (that was aired on NPR Weekend On-Air Challenge, January 12^th, 2020).


Every answer is a compound word in which the vowel sound in each half is a short "a"— as in "grassland" or "madcap" – which is called an “ash” sound 
/ æ/   in American English.

     1.   Father's father

     2.   Item in a levee

     3.   Slang term for someone who talks, talks, talks

     4.   Symbol in a tweet

     5.   Sudden remembrance of something past

     6.   Carrying case with straps that's worn over the shoulders

     7.   Pancake

      
 8.   Game of 21

     9.   Low-growing weed that can quickly take over a lawn

     10.               Old-fashioned timer that you periodically turn over

     11.               Place where taxis line up

     12.               Done hurriedly and carelessly

     13.               Make individually without machine help

     14.                Item you step onto when you step out of the shower

<Answer Keys>

   1.  Granddad

   2.  Sandbag

   3.  Gasbag

   4.  Hashtag

   5.  Flashback

   6.  Backpack or Knapsack

   7.  Flapjack

   8.  Blackjack

   9.  Crapgrass

  10.              Sandglass

  11.              Cabstand

  12.              Slapdash

  13.              Handcraft

  14.              bathmat

Grocery Market Word Play (from National Public Radio Sunday Puzzle)

This week, I would like to present the first weekend puzzle from NPR (National Public Radio). These puzzle questions might lack validity for EFL students whose learning settings are not the US ground, because the theme for the questions this week is brand names you find in American grocery store. Let us just give it a try though for fun. Here we go!

Every answer is the brand name of a food or beverage that you might buy at the grocery store.

   

   1.   Preserves — Consists of a word meaning "lollipops" around the letter M

   2.   Soup — Conceals the word OGRES in consecutive letters

   3.   Breakfast cereal — Is an anagram of WHITE SEA

   4.   Baking goods — Is an anagram of RUBY LIPS + L

   5.   Cookies — Spelled backward, is a two-word phrase meaning "betting

 everything"

   6.   Soft drink — Consists of four consecutive state postal abbreviations

   7.   Beer — Completes the phrase "older ___" in a punny way

   8.   Juice — Also names a kind of car engine

   9.   Beverage product — Hidden inside the phrase T-BONE STEAK

Answer Keys 

   

   1.  Smuckers

   

   2.  Progresso

   

   3.  Wheaties

   4.  Lays

   5.  Pillsbury

   

   6.  Coka Cola

   7.  Budweiser

   8.  V8

   9.  Nestea

10.        

1.