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 5 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.

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. What would a diagram of a lichen need to label?
  2. 2. What overall structure does this text use?
  3. 3. How would a photograph with a scale bar help this text?
2.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 overall structure does this text use?
  2. 2. What would an illustration of Harrison's fourth clock need to convey?
  3. 3. How would a diagram of the Earth's rotation help this text?

LessonPrint · SL.4.2 · Set 5 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Information in Other Forms

Set 5. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. The fungal structure holding water and the algal cells inside it. 2. It defines, then explains the partnership, then gives two consequences: dating rock and measuring pollution. 3. It would show how little a millimetre a year amounts to over a lifetime.
  2. 2.1. Problem and solution — the difficulty, the principle, the obstacle, and Harrison's answer. 2. That it was the size of a large pocket watch, not a cabinet. 3. It could show the fifteen degrees an hour that turns a time difference into a distance.

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