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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 18 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.

Take Brief Notes

W.3.8

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

How a Windmill Grinds Flour

A windmill turns moving air into turning stone. The sails are set at a slight angle. Because of that angle, wind pushing on them cannot pass straight through, so it pushes them round instead. The sails turn a horizontal shaft. A large wooden gear on that shaft meshes with a smaller one on an upright shaft, which turns the millstones below. Because the smaller gear has fewer teeth, it spins faster than the sails do. Four turns of the sails can mean twenty turns of the stone. The grain falls between two stones. The top stone turns; the bottom one does not. The grain is crushed between them, and flour comes out at the edge.

  1. 1. How is this text organised?
  2. 2. Where does the flour come out?
  3. 3. The author says the stone spins faster than the sails. What reason is given?
  4. 4. How are the sails set?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Salmon's Return

A salmon hatches in a river, swims to the sea, and comes back years later to the river it was born in. It finds its way home by smell. Every river carries its own mixture of soil, rock and plants, and a young salmon learns that smell before it leaves. The return journey is upstream. The fish leap waterfalls, sometimes several metres high, and they do not eat once they enter fresh water. Because it is not feeding, a salmon uses up its own body on the climb. By the time it reaches the gravel where it hatched, it is thin and worn. There it lays its eggs. Most Atlantic salmon die soon afterwards.

  1. 1. The author says the salmon arrives thin and worn. What reason is given?
  2. 2. How is this text organised?
  3. 3. Where does a salmon hatch?
  4. 4. How does it find its way home?

LessonPrint · W.3.8 · Set 18 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Take Brief Notes

Set 18. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. As a chain of causes, following the movement from the sails down to the flour. 2. At the edge of the stones. 3. The smaller gear has fewer teeth. 4. At a slight angle.
  2. 2.1. It does not eat in fresh water, so it uses up its own body on the climb. 2. As a salmon life cycle in order — gravel, sea, upstream, eggs — with the causes explained as it goes. 3. In a river, in gravel. 4. By smell.

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.