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Which Evidence Supports What is a free printable Grade 4 English worksheet on matching a piece of evidence to its claim, aligned to Common Core standard RI.4.8. 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.

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

Which Evidence Supports What

RI.4.8

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.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. The text says lichens are a living measure of pollution. What reason is given?
  2. 2. What is the author's purpose, and how do you know?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

How Penicillin Was Found

In 1928 Alexander Fleming went on holiday 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 mould on it. Around the mould was a clear ring where the bacteria had died. Fleming realised the mould 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 litres of mould fluid to treat one patient. By 1944 the problem had been solved and penicillin was reaching soldiers in the field.

  1. 1. The text says the hard part was not the discovery. What evidence supports that?
  2. 2. What is the author's purpose, and how do you know?

LessonPrint · RI.4.8 · Set 4 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Which Evidence Supports What

Set 4. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. They absorb whatever is in the air, so they disappear where the air is dirty. 2. To explain what a lichen is and why it is useful to scientists — the last two paragraphs are both uses.
  2. 2.1. It took ten years for anyone to act, and two thousand litres of fluid to treat one patient. 2. To correct the idea that penicillin was one lucky accident — the second half is all about the work that followed.

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RI.4.8 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.