Skip to content
LessonPrint

Following a Long Explanation is a free printable Grade 2 English worksheet on holding a multi-stage explanation together, aligned to Common Core standard RI.2.10. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions that each ask different questions, so no two pupils in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 10 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

Next set

One paper per pupil

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425

Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. All 25 sets ask different questions.

Following a Long Explanation

RI.2.10

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Volcanoes

A volcano is an opening in the Earth's crust where hot rock reaches the surface. Deep underground, rock is so hot that it melts. Melted rock is called magma. Magma is lighter than the solid rock around it, so it rises. When magma reaches the surface it is called lava. Lava can pour out slowly in rivers, or it can burst out in an explosion, depending on how thick it is. As lava cools it hardens into new rock. Layer after layer, this new rock builds the mountain we call a volcano.

  1. 1. Summarise this text in one sentence.
  2. 2. How are magma and lava connected?
  3. 3. Put these in order: lava hardens, rock melts, magma rises.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Launching a Lifeboat

When a boat is in trouble, a call goes out to the lifeboat station. Pagers sound. The crew are volunteers, so they stop whatever they are doing and drive to the station. Most arrive within six minutes. They pull on drysuits and lifejackets and climb aboard. The boat slides down a ramp into the sea and the engines start. At sea, the crew look for a flare, a light, or a shape in the water. Once they find the boat, they take the people off first and the boat second. A lifeboat can right itself if a wave rolls it over.

  1. 1. Put these in order: the boat slides down the ramp, pagers sound, the crew pull on drysuits.
  2. 2. Summarise this text in one sentence.
  3. 3. How are the pagers connected to the launch?

LessonPrint · RI.2.10 · Set 10 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Following a Long Explanation

Set 10. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Melted rock rises through the Earth's crust as magma, pours out as lava, and hardens layer by layer into a volcano. 2. They are the same melted rock — magma underground becomes lava at the surface. 3. Rock melts, magma rises, lava hardens.
  2. 2.1. Pagers sound, the crew pull on drysuits, the boat slides down the ramp. 2. A pager call brings volunteers to the station, they suit up, launch down a ramp and take the people off a boat in trouble. 3. The pagers tell the volunteer crew to come, so the boat can be launched.

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RI.2.10 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.