Main Topic of the Whole Text is a free printable Grade 2 English worksheet on naming what a multi-paragraph text is about, aligned to Common Core standard RI.2.2. 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 15 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

One paper per pupil

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

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

Main Topic of the Whole Text

RI.2.2

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.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. What is the main topic of this text?
2. Summarise this text in one sentence.

2.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. What is the main topic of this text?
2. Summarise this text in one sentence.

LessonPrint · RI.2.2 · Set 15 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Main Topic of the Whole Text

Set 15. Prints on its own sheet.

1.1. How a lifeboat is launched and used in a rescue. 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.
2.1. Volcanoes, and how melted rock builds them. 2. Melted rock rises through the Earth's crust as magma, pours out as lava, and hardens layer by layer into a volcano.

More practice for RI.2.2

Say what the whole text is about and what each paragraph is about.

Teaching this next? The Main Topic of Each Paragraph is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 2 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RI.2.2 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.