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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 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. 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 Wolves and the Rivers

Wolves were shot out of Yellowstone by 1926. Fourteen were brought back in 1995. With no wolves, elk had grazed the valleys freely for seventy years. Young willow and aspen were eaten as soon as they grew. The wolves killed some elk. More importantly, they changed where elk would stand still. Open valley floors became dangerous, so the elk stopped lingering there. Willow and aspen grew back along the rivers. Beavers, which need willow, returned. Their dams made ponds. Roots held the banks. The rivers narrowed, deepened and moved less. Some researchers describe this as wolves changing the shape of rivers, though others argue the effect has been overstated.

  1. 1. What overall structure does this text use?
  2. 2. What would a diagram of this chain need to show?
  3. 3. How would a flow diagram help this text?
2.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 would an illustration of a two-handed town clock convey?
  3. 3. What overall structure does this text use?

LessonPrint · SL.4.2 · Set 18 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Information in Other Forms

Set 18. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Cause and effect in a chain, from wolves to elk to trees to beavers to rivers. 2. Wolves, elk behaviour, willow and aspen, beavers and dams, and the narrowed river. 3. It could show the chain from wolves to rivers in one picture, which the words take five paragraphs to build.
  2. 2.1. It would show the east-to-west spread of local noons that the railways had to abolish. 2. That both times were kept at once for years, which is how contested the change was. 3. Chronology with cause and effect — the old system, why it stopped working, and what replaced it.

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