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Summarize an Information Text is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on summarizing 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 students in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 20 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 students have the same paper in front of them.

Summarize an Information Text

RI.4.2

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

How Penicillin Was Found

In 1928 Alexander Fleming went on vacation and left a stack of dishes on a bench. Each held a colony of bacteria. When he came back, one dish had a spot of mold on it. Around the mold was a clear ring where the bacteria had died. Fleming realized the mold was producing something that killed bacteria. He named it penicillin and published a paper. Almost nobody noticed. Ten years later, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain read that paper and tried to make penicillin in quantity. That turned out to be the hard part: it took two thousand liters of mold fluid to treat one patient. By 1944 the problem had been solved and penicillin was reaching soldiers in the field.

  1. 1. Summarize this text.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

What a Beaver Dam Does

A beaver does not build a dam for shelter. It builds one to make a pond, and it lives in a lodge in the pond. The dam raises the water so the lodge entrance stays underwater. A predator that cannot swim cannot get in. But the pond does far more than protect one family. Behind a dam, water slows, and slow water drops the silt it carries. Over years this builds rich wet ground. That ground holds water in a drought and holds it back in a flood. It supports plants, insects, amphibians and birds that were not there before. Where beavers have been reintroduced, the number of species in a valley typically rises within five years.

  1. 1. Summarize this text.

LessonPrint · RI.4.2 · Set 20 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Summarize an Information Text

Set 20. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Fleming spotted mold killing bacteria in 1928 and published to no response; Florey and Chain solved the production problem, and by 1944 penicillin reached soldiers.
  2. 2.1. A beaver dams a river to make a pond with an underwater lodge entrance, and the slowed water builds wet ground that buffers drought and flood and raises species numbers.

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