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Information in Other Forms is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on taking meaning from a visual or spoken presentation, aligned to Common Core standard SL.4.2. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 24 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 13 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 24 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.

Information in Other Forms

SL.4.2

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Why Clocks Agree

Until the 1840s, every British town kept its own time, set by the sun. Noon in Bristol was about ten minutes after noon in London. That was no problem while the fastest thing on the road was a horse. The railways changed it. A timetable cannot work if every station measures noon differently, and trains sharing a track need to agree about when. So the railway companies imposed London time on their whole network. People called it railway time. Some towns kept two minute hands on the town clock for years, one local and one railway. In 1880 Parliament made a single time legal across the country. The sun had been overruled by the timetable.

  1. 1. How would a map of British noon times help this text?
  2. 2. What overall structure does this text use?
  3. 3. What would an illustration of a two-handed town clock convey?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

What a Beaver Dam Does

A beaver does not build a dam for shelter. It builds one to make a pond, and it lives in a lodge in the pond. The dam raises the water so the lodge entrance stays underwater. A predator that cannot swim cannot get in. But the pond does far more than protect one family. Behind a dam, water slows, and slow water drops the silt it carries. Over years this builds rich wet ground. That ground holds water in a drought and holds it back in a flood. It supports plants, insects, amphibians and birds that were not there before. Where beavers have been reintroduced, the number of species in a valley typically rises within five years.

  1. 1. What overall structure does this text use?
  2. 2. What would a cross-section of a beaver pond need to label?
  3. 3. How would a before-and-after photograph help this text?

LessonPrint · SL.4.2 · Set 13 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Information in Other Forms

Set 13. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. It would show the east-to-west spread of local noons that the railways had to abolish. 2. Chronology with cause and effect — the old system, why it stopped working, and what replaced it. 3. That both times were kept at once for years, which is how contested the change was.
  2. 2.1. Cause and effect, widening from the lodge to the valley. 2. The dam, the raised water, the lodge and its underwater entrance. 3. It would show the valley with and without the pond, which the text describes over years.

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to SL.4.2 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.