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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 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. 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.

How Penicillin Was Found

In 1928 Alexander Fleming went on holiday and left a stack of dishes on a bench. Each held a colony of bacteria. When he came back, one dish had a spot of mould on it. Around the mould was a clear ring where the bacteria had died. Fleming realised the mould was producing something that killed bacteria. He named it penicillin and published a paper. Almost nobody noticed. Ten years later, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain read that paper and tried to make penicillin in quantity. That turned out to be the hard part: it took two thousand litres of mould fluid to treat one patient. By 1944 the problem had been solved and penicillin was reaching soldiers in the field.

  1. 1. How would a timeline help a reader of this text?
  2. 2. What overall structure does this text use?
  3. 3. What would a photograph accompanying this text most usefully show?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

What a Coral Reef Is

A coral reef looks like rock and is built by animals. A coral polyp is a soft creature the size of a pinhead. It draws calcium from the sea water and builds a hard cup around itself. Millions of polyps, cup upon cup, become a reef. Inside each polyp live tiny algae. The algae make food from sunlight and pass most of it to the polyp. In exchange they get shelter and the polyp's waste. Neither could build a reef alone. When the water gets too warm, the polyps expel the algae. Without them the coral turns white and starves. That is what bleaching means. A reef takes centuries to build and can bleach in a single hot summer.

  1. 1. How would a labelled cross-section help this text?
  2. 2. What would a diagram of a polyp need to label?
  3. 3. What overall structure does this text use?

LessonPrint · SL.4.2 · Set 20 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Information in Other Forms

Set 20. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. It would set 1928, the ten-year gap and 1944 against each other at a glance. 2. Chronology — 1928, ten years later, and 1944. 3. A dish with a mould spot and the clear ring around it.
  2. 2.1. It could show the polyp, its calcium cup and the algae inside it, which the words describe in turn. 2. The soft polyp, the hard calcium cup and the algae living inside it. 3. It defines a reef, explains the polyp and algae partnership, then explains what bleaching breaks.

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