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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 23 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.

What a Coral Reef Is

A coral reef looks like rock and is built by animals. A coral polyp is a soft creature the size of a pinhead. It draws calcium from the sea water and builds a hard cup around itself. Millions of polyps, cup upon cup, become a reef. Inside each polyp live tiny algae. The algae make food from sunlight and pass most of it to the polyp. In exchange they get shelter and the polyp's waste. Neither could build a reef alone. When the water gets too warm, the polyps expel the algae. Without them the coral turns white and starves. That is what bleaching means. A reef takes centuries to build and can bleach in a single hot summer.

  1. 1. Summarize this text.
2.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 schedule 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 schedule.

  1. 1. Summarize this text.

LessonPrint · RI.4.2 · Set 23 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Summarize an Information Text

Set 23. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Coral reefs are built by pinhead-sized polyps that make calcium cups and live in partnership with algae, and warm water breaks that partnership and bleaches the reef.
  2. 2.1. Every British town kept its own sun time until railway schedules made that impossible, so railway companies imposed London time and Parliament made it law in 1880.

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