Skip to content
LessonPrint

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 16 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

Next set

One paper per pupil

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425

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.

The Longitude Problem

A ship's latitude — how far north or south it is — can be found from the height of the sun at noon. Sailors could do that for centuries. Longitude, how far east or west, was the problem. It has no natural marker. The solution was known in principle: compare the time on board with the time at a fixed place. The Earth turns fifteen degrees an hour, so every hour of difference is fifteen degrees of longitude. That required a clock that stayed accurate on a rolling, salty, temperature-swinging ship. No such clock existed. John Harrison, a carpenter, spent forty-three years building four. The fourth, finished in 1759, was the size of a large pocket watch and lost five seconds in eighty-one days at sea.

  1. 1. What would an illustration of Harrison's fourth clock need to convey?
  2. 2. What overall structure does this text use?
  3. 3. How would a diagram of the Earth's rotation help this text?
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. How would a before-and-after photograph help this text?
  3. 3. What would a cross-section of a beaver pond need to label?

LessonPrint · SL.4.2 · Set 16 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Information in Other Forms

Set 16. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. That it was the size of a large pocket watch, not a cabinet. 2. Problem and solution — the difficulty, the principle, the obstacle, and Harrison's answer. 3. It could show the fifteen degrees an hour that turns a time difference into a distance.
  2. 2.1. Cause and effect, widening from the lodge to the valley. 2. It would show the valley with and without the pond, which the text describes over years. 3. The dam, the raised water, the lodge and its underwater entrance.

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