Skip to content
LessonPrint

Cause and Effect is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on describing why one thing leads to another, aligned to Common Core standard RI.3.3. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 18 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 24 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

Next setLesson plan

One paper per pupil

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425

Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 18 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.

Cause and Effect

RI.3.3

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Morse Code

Morse code turns every letter into a pattern of short and long signals: dots and dashes. The commonest letters were given the shortest patterns. E is one dot. T is one dash. Q, which is rare, is dash-dash-dot-dash. Because of that choice, an average message is much shorter than it would be otherwise. A message can be sent as sound, as light, or as taps on a pipe. That is why it survived so long: it needs almost no equipment. Timing carries the meaning. A dash is three times as long as a dot. The gap between letters is three dots long, and between words, seven. SOS was chosen because it is easy to recognise: three dots, three dashes, three dots.

  1. 1. Explain the cause and effect between letter frequency and message length.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Why Bread Rises

Yeast is alive. It is a fungus, and each grain of dried yeast holds millions of cells waiting for water. Add warm water and the cells wake up. They begin to feed on the sugars in the flour. As they feed, they give off carbon dioxide gas. The gas cannot escape, because kneading the dough has built a stretchy web of gluten that traps it. Thousands of tiny bubbles form, and the dough swells. In the oven, two things happen. The trapped gas expands in the heat, so the loaf rises further. Then the heat kills the yeast and sets the gluten, and the bubbles are locked in place. That is why bread has holes in it.

  1. 1. Explain the cause and effect between kneading and the holes in bread.

LessonPrint · RI.3.3 · Set 24 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Cause and Effect

Set 24. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Because common letters got short patterns, an average message came out much shorter.
  2. 2.1. Kneading builds the gluten web, which traps the gas in bubbles, and the heat locks those bubbles in as holes.

More practice for RI.3.3

Explain how events or steps connect, using time and cause words.

Teaching this next? Cause, Sequence and Time Language is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 3 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RI.3.3 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.