What the Challenge Was is a free printable Grade 2 English worksheet on linking a character's action to the problem they faced, aligned to Common Core standard RL.2.3. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 24 of them with 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 22 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.
Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 24 of these 25 sets ask different questions — this skill does not have 25 questions to give. The rest reorder them, so no two pupils have the same paper in front of them.
What the Challenge Was
RL.2.3
NameDate
Read the story, then answer the questions.
1.Read the text, then answer the questions.
The Crow and the Pitcher
A crow had flown for hours without finding water. At last she saw a pitcher standing in a garden.
She landed on the rim and looked in. There was water at the bottom, but the neck was narrow and her beak could not reach it. She pushed the pitcher. It was too heavy to tip.
Then the crow noticed the pebbles on the path. She picked one up and dropped it in. Then another. Then another. Each pebble pushed the water a little higher.
After forty pebbles, the water reached the top. The crow drank until she had had enough.
1. Why did each pebble make the water rise?
2. How does the crow respond to the problem of the narrow neck?
3. What does dropping forty pebbles tell you about the crow?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.
Fog Morning
The hill has gone. The wood has gone.
The postbox stands in a cloud, alone.
No sheep, no gate, no crooked tree —
only the ten short steps I see.
I walk. The ten steps walk with me.
The gate appears. And then the tree.
The hill comes back. The wood comes back.
The fog rolls off along the track.
1. Is the speaker lost? How do you know?
2. What is the speaker doing in this poem?
LessonPrint · RL.2.3 · Set 22 · free to copy for classroom use
Answer key — What the Challenge Was
Set 22. Prints on its own sheet.
1.1. The pebbles took up room at the bottom, pushing the water up the narrow neck. 2. She does not give up — she tries pushing it, then drops in pebbles one at a time. 3. She is patient — she kept dropping pebbles even though each one raised the water only a little.
2.1. No — they keep walking and the gate and tree appear where they should. 2. Walking along a track in thick fog.
Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.2.3 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.