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Main Ideas from What You Heard is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on pulling the main ideas out of something presented, aligned to Common Core standard SL.3.2. 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 21 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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

Main Ideas from What You Heard

SL.3.2

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.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. What gas does yeast give off?
  2. 2. What kind of living thing is yeast?
  3. 3. Summarise this text in one sentence.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Turning Milk into Cheese

Cheese begins as an accident that people learned to repeat. Milk is mostly water with fat and protein in it. To make cheese, the protein has to be separated out. A starter culture of bacteria is added first. The bacteria turn some of the milk sugar into acid, and the acid begins to make the protein clump together. Then rennet is added, which finishes the job. The milk splits into solid curds and watery whey. The whey is drained off. The curds are pressed, salted, and left to age. Time does the rest: a cheese aged for two years tastes nothing like the same cheese at two weeks.

  1. 1. What is the main idea of this text, and which details support it?
  2. 2. Summarise this text in one sentence.
  3. 3. What is added first?

LessonPrint · SL.3.2 · Set 21 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Main Ideas from What You Heard

Set 21. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Carbon dioxide. 2. A fungus. 3. Yeast wakes in warm water, feeds on flour sugars and gives off gas that the gluten web traps, and the oven sets those bubbles as holes.
  2. 2.1. Cheese is made by separating milk protein — supported by the bacteria, the rennet and the pressing. 2. Bacteria and rennet split milk into curds and whey, and the drained, pressed, salted curds age into cheese. 3. A starter culture of bacteria.

More practice for SL.3.2

Pick out the main ideas and details from something you heard or saw.

Teaching this next? Getting the Main Ideas From Listening is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 3 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to SL.3.2 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.