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Literal or Not? is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on telling words that mean what they say from words that do not, aligned to Common Core standard RL.3.4. 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 17 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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One paper per pupil

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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.

Literal or Not?

RL.3.4

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Fox and the Well

A fox leaned too far over a well and fell in. The water was shallow, but the walls were smooth and far too high to climb. He was still sitting there when a goat came by and looked down. "Is the water good?" asked the goat. "The best I have ever tasted," said the fox. "Come down and see." The goat jumped in. The fox climbed onto the goat's back, sprang out, and trotted off. "Wait!" called the goat. "How do I get out?" "You should have thought about that," said the fox, "before you jumped."

  1. 1. "Look before you leap" is a proverb. What does it mean here?
  2. 2. The fox says the water is "the best I have ever tasted". Is he telling the truth?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Last Letter

Every Thursday for six years, Mr Ellis posted a letter to his sister in Canada. Then the letters started coming back. Address unknown. He kept writing them anyway. He put them in a shoebox instead of the postbox. When his neighbour Ada asked why, he said, "Because the day I stop writing is the day she is really gone." Ada went home and looked up the town on a map. It took her three weeks and eleven phone calls to find the new address. The shoebox held ninety-two letters. They posted them all on the same day.

  1. 1. "The day she is really gone" — is his sister dead? What does he mean?
  2. 2. What does "Address unknown" tell a reader, and what does it not tell them?

LessonPrint · RL.3.4 · Set 17 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Literal or Not?

Set 17. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Think about the consequences before you act, as the goat should have before jumping into the well. 2. No — he is flattering the water to get the goat to jump in.
  2. 2.1. No. He means she would be gone from his life, which is different from being unreachable by post. 2. It tells you the post office could not deliver; it does not tell you what happened to her.

More practice for RL.3.4

Tell when words mean what they say and when they do not.

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

All Grade 3 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.3.4 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.