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Explicit and Inferred is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on separating what a text states from what it implies, aligned to Common Core standard RL.4.1. 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 3 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.

Explicit and Inferred

RL.4.1

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Low Water

Stanza one: Twice a day the sea walks out and leaves the harbour standing, the boats set down on their own keels like birds that have stopped landing. Stanza two: The mud shines. Old anchors show, a bicycle, a broken chain, the whole forgotten underneath made briefly plain. Stanza three: Then, without a sound at all, it turns and starts to come. The bicycle goes under first. The harbour lifts. The boats go dumb.

  1. 1. What three things are showing in the mud?
  2. 2. What goes under first when the tide turns?
  3. 3. Why does the bicycle go under first?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Lost Ledger

Mr Kaur ran the shop on the corner for forty-one years and never used a till roll. He kept a ledger. Every debt in the village was in it, in pencil, and every settlement crossed out. Nobody ever asked to see it. Nobody ever queried it. When he retired he handed the ledger to his daughter, who was taking over. She found eleven debts outstanding, some six years old, totalling more than she took in a fortnight. She thought about it for a week. Then she went through the book, tore out those pages, and started a new one with a card machine on the counter. She never told him. He never asked.

  1. 1. Why did she tear the pages out rather than chase the debts?
  2. 2. How long did Mr Kaur run the shop?
  3. 3. How did he record debts?

LessonPrint · RL.4.1 · Set 3 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Explicit and Inferred

Set 3. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Old anchors, a bicycle and a broken chain. 2. The bicycle. 3. Because it lies lowest in the harbour, so the returning water reaches it first.
  2. 2.1. Because collecting six-year-old debts from neighbours would have cost more than the money. 2. Forty-one years. 3. In pencil, in a ledger, with settlements crossed out.

More practice for RL.4.1

Back up both what the text says and what it implies with details.

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

All Grade 4 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.4.1 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.