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The Message and How It Is Carried is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on naming the message and the details that convey it, aligned to Common Core standard RL.3.2. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 20 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 20 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 20 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.

The Message and How It Is Carried

RL.3.2

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Night the Lamp Went Out

Grace's father kept the lighthouse. On the worst night of the winter, the lamp went out. He was ill in bed. Grace was eleven. She carried the oil up ninety-seven steps in the dark, twice, because the can was too heavy to lift full. Her arms shook so much on the second trip that she had to sit down halfway. She trimmed the wick the way she had watched a hundred times. She struck the match on the fourth try. By the time the light swung out across the water, three ships had already turned back. Grace never knew whether she had been in time. She decided not to think about it.

  1. 1. What is the central message of this story?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Violin in the Loft

Nobody in our family plays anything. So the violin in the loft was a mystery for eleven years. Then Great-Aunt Sylvie came for Christmas and saw the case on the table. She went very quiet. "That was my brother's," she said. "He played in a café in Marseille before the war." She opened it. Three strings had gone, and the bridge lay loose in the bottom of the case. She did not play it. She held it under her chin for about ten seconds, put it back, and closed the lid. Then she asked for more potatoes and did not mention it again.

  1. 1. What is the central message of this story?

LessonPrint · RL.3.2 · Set 20 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — The Message and How It Is Carried

Set 20. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Doing the job matters even when you never find out whether it was enough.
  2. 2.1. Some feelings are shown by what a person does not say — Sylvie held the violin and asked for potatoes.

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