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Summarise an Information Text is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on summarising without copying the opening sentence, aligned to Common Core standard RI.4.2. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 19 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 21 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 19 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.

Summarise an Information Text

RI.4.2

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.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. Summarise this text.
2.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. Summarise this text.

LessonPrint · RI.4.2 · Set 21 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Summarise an Information Text

Set 21. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Latitude was easy and longitude had no natural marker; comparing times would give it, and Harrison spent forty-three years building a clock accurate enough at sea.
  2. 2.1. A lichen is a fungus and an alga living as one body, able to grow on bare rock, so slow it can date surfaces and so sensitive it measures air pollution.

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