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Paraphrase What You Heard is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on putting part of a text into your own words, 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 that each ask 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 2 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. All 25 sets ask different questions.

Paraphrase What You Heard

SL.4.2

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.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. When did Parliament make a single time legal?
  2. 2. Summarise this text.
  3. 3. Determine the main idea of this text and explain how key details support it.
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. How could sailors find their latitude?
  2. 2. Determine the main idea of this text and explain how key details support it.
  3. 3. How long did Harrison spend on the problem?

LessonPrint · SL.4.2 · Set 2 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Paraphrase What You Heard

Set 2. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. 1880. 2. Every British town kept its own sun time until railway timetables made that impossible, so railway companies imposed London time and Parliament made it law in 1880. 3. The railways forced Britain onto one clock — supported by the ten-minute gap, the timetable problem and the 1880 law.
  2. 2.1. From the height of the sun at noon. 2. Finding longitude was a clockmaking problem, not an astronomy one — supported by the fifteen-degree rule and Harrison's watch. 3. Forty-three years.

More practice for SL.4.2

Put part of what you heard or saw into your own words.

Teaching this next? Paraphrasing What You Heard is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

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