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Patterns of Events is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on recognising a shared pattern across stories, aligned to Common Core standard RL.4.9. 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 11 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.

Patterns of Events

RL.4.9

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Quarry, Filled

Stanza one: They took the hill away in carts for ninety years, and then they stopped. The hole they left filled up with rain until the rain had reached the top. Stanza two: Now people swim where men once cut. The water hides the ledge, the crane, the drill-marks in the standing rock, the tracks, the shed, the loading lane. Stanza three: The children diving off the edge have never heard the word for it. They call it "the lake". They are not wrong. A thing becomes what people make of it.

  1. 1. How is this poem like "Low Water"?
  2. 2. How is its conclusion different from "Low Water"?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Lost Ledger

Mr Kaur ran the shop on the corner for forty-one years and never used a till roll. He kept a ledger. Every debt in the village was in it, in pencil, and every settlement crossed out. Nobody ever asked to see it. Nobody ever queried it. When he retired he handed the ledger to his daughter, who was taking over. She found eleven debts outstanding, some six years old, totalling more than she took in a fortnight. She thought about it for a week. Then she went through the book, tore out those pages, and started a new one with a card machine on the counter. She never told him. He never asked.

  1. 1. How is the daughter's decision different from the council's?
  2. 2. How is this story like "The Clock That Was Wrong"?

LessonPrint · RL.4.9 · Set 11 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Patterns of Events

Set 11. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Both are about water covering and uncovering things people have left behind. 2. "Low Water" watches the cycle; this one argues that the meaning has changed for good.
  2. 2.1. She ends the old system quietly; the council corrects the clock publicly and has to undo it. 2. Both are about an old arrangement that no longer works and what it costs to change it.

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.4.9 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.