Skip to content
LessonPrint

Take Brief Notes is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on recording facts from a source without copying it out, aligned to Common Core standard W.3.8. 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 16 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. All 25 sets ask different questions.

Take Brief Notes

W.3.8

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

How a Canal Lock Works

A canal cannot run uphill. Where the land rises, engineers build a lock: a chamber with a gate at each end. A boat going uphill enters the lock through the lower gate. The gate closes behind it. Sluices in the upper gate are opened. Water flows in from the higher stretch of canal, and the boat rises with it. No pump is needed, because the water comes down by gravity. When the water inside matches the level above, the upper gate can be opened and the boat moves on. Going downhill, everything runs the other way: the water is let out, and the boat sinks with it.

  1. 1. What is a lock?
  2. 2. Which gate does a boat going uphill enter through?
  3. 3. How is this text organised?
  4. 4. What are opened to let the water in?
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 added first?
  2. 2. The author says time does the rest. What reason is given?
  3. 3. What is milk mostly made of?
  4. 4. How is this text organised?

LessonPrint · W.3.8 · Set 16 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Take Brief Notes

Set 16. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. A chamber with a gate at each end, built where the land rises. 2. The lower gate. 3. As a sequence — the steps of going uphill in order, then the reverse for downhill. 4. Sluices in the upper gate.
  2. 2.1. A starter culture of bacteria. 2. A cheese aged two years tastes nothing like the same cheese at two weeks. 3. Water, with fat and protein in it. 4. As a process in order, from milk to aged cheese.

More practice for W.3.8

Take brief notes from sources and sort them into given categories.

Teaching this next? Taking Notes and Sorting Evidence is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 3 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to W.3.8 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.