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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 25 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.

Lichen

A lichen is not one organism. It is a fungus and an alga living as one body. The fungus provides the structure and holds water. The alga photosynthesises and makes sugar. Separated, the fungus starves and the alga dries out. Because it needs no soil, a lichen can grow on bare rock, on gravestones and on the roofs of cars that have not moved for a decade. Lichens grow extremely slowly — some crustose species less than a millimetre a year. Scientists use that rate to date rock surfaces, a method called lichenometry. Lichens also absorb whatever is in the air. Where the air is dirty, they disappear, which makes them a living measure of pollution.

  1. 1. How would a photograph with a scale bar help this text?
  2. 2. What overall structure does this text use?
  3. 3. What would a diagram of a lichen need to label?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Accidental Photograph

In 1895 Wilhelm Röntgen was working with a covered tube in a darkened room when he noticed a screen across the laboratory glowing. Something was passing through the cover and crossing the room. He did not know what it was, so he called it X — the unknown. He spent seven weeks alone in the laboratory testing it. He put wood, rubber and metal in the way. Metal stopped it; the rest did not. Then he asked his wife to put her hand between the tube and a photographic plate. The picture showed the bones of her hand and her wedding ring. Within a year, X-rays were being used in hospitals. Röntgen refused to patent them.

  1. 1. What would a diagram of Röntgen's experiment need to show?
  2. 2. How would a reproduction of the first X-ray help this text?
  3. 3. What overall structure does this text use?

LessonPrint · SL.4.2 · Set 25 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Information in Other Forms

Set 25. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. It would show how little a millimetre a year amounts to over a lifetime. 2. It defines, then explains the partnership, then gives two consequences: dating rock and measuring pollution. 3. The fungal structure holding water and the algal cells inside it.
  2. 2.1. The covered tube, the room, the glowing screen across it, and the materials placed in the way. 2. It would show what Röntgen actually saw: bones and a wedding ring. 3. Chronology, from the accidental glow to hospital use within a year.

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