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Text structure (cause–effect, compare, problem–solution)
4th grade (Year 5 in England) · 16 questions · Common Core: RI.4.5, RI.5.5 · England: Y5/6 Reading, KS2 SATs Reading
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Rethinking Screen Time
Few debates generate as much anxiety among parents as the question of screen time. Headlines warn that smartphones are "destroying a generation", while technology companies insist that their products connect and empower young people. The truth, as so often, is more complicated than either side admits.
Part of the problem is that "screen time" is a crude measure. An hour spent video-calling a grandparent, coding a game or researching a school project is not the same as an hour spent scrolling through an endless feed of short videos. Researchers increasingly argue that what young people do on screens matters more than how long they spend on them.
That said, quantity is not irrelevant. Several large studies have linked very heavy use – more than five or six hours a day of recreational screen time – to poorer sleep and lower wellbeing. Screens can displace other activities that support health: exercise, face-to-face friendship and, crucially, sleep. Light from devices and the stimulation of social media late at night can delay sleep for teenagers, whose body clocks already push them towards later bedtimes.
It is worth noting, however, that most of these studies show correlation, not causation. Teenagers who are already unhappy may turn to their phones more, rather than their phones making them unhappy. Untangling cause and effect is notoriously difficult.
What, then, should families do? Rather than fixating on a single number, experts suggest asking three questions. Is screen use getting in the way of sleep? Is it crowding out exercise and real-world relationships? And does the young person feel in control of it, or controlled by it? If the answers are reassuring, the exact number of minutes may matter less than we fear.
Question 1
Read "Rethinking Screen Time". What is the function of paragraph 4?
- A. It introduces the topic for the first time.
- B. It adds a caution about how to interpret the research in paragraph 3.
- C. It describes a specific family.
- D. It gives the writer's final advice.
Speech: Our Beach, Our Responsibility
Good morning, everyone. Last Saturday, twenty-three pupils from this school spent three hours on Sandy Bay beach. We collected forty-one bags of rubbish. Forty-one. Bottles, crisp packets, fishing line, a shoe, and – I promise you this is true – an entire garden chair.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. "It's not my rubbish. Why should I pick it up?" And you're right: most of us didn't drop it. But here's the thing. The seal pup that gets tangled in that fishing line doesn't care whose fault it was. The toddler who cuts her foot on broken glass doesn't care either.
That beach belongs to all of us. We swim there in summer. We walk our dogs there in winter. Some of us learned to ride our bikes on the promenade. If it belongs to all of us, then looking after it belongs to all of us too.
So I'm asking you for just one thing. Not money. Not your whole weekend. Just two hours, on the first Saturday of next month. Bring gloves, bring a friend, bring your little brother if you have to.
Because if twenty-three of us can fill forty-one bags, imagine what four hundred of us could do.
Thank you.
Question 2
Read "Speech: Our Beach, Our Responsibility". How does the speaker make the ending powerful?
- A. She tells a sad story.
- B. She uses the earlier numbers to imagine a much bigger result.
- C. She lists rules for the clean-up.
- D. She introduces a new problem.
Harbour at Dawn (GCSE-style extract)
The harbour did not so much wake as surrender to the morning. Fog lay over the water like a damp grey blanket that someone had forgotten to fold, and the fishing boats nodded at their moorings, half-asleep, their ropes creaking in complaint.
Old Tomas was already there. He was always there. He sat on an upturned crate at the end of the quay, mending a net with fingers that had long ago stopped feeling the cold. His knife flashed, paused, flashed again. Every so often he lifted his head and sniffed the air, as if the sea had written him a letter only he could read.
Behind him, the town stirred reluctantly. A shutter rattled up. A dog barked twice and thought better of it. Somewhere a kettle began its thin, rising whistle. The smell of bread drifted from the bakery on Water Lane and mixed with the older, deeper smells of salt, diesel and fish.
Then the sun arrived. It did not rise so much as break through – one bright blade splitting the fog, then another, until the whole harbour was suddenly ablaze. The water turned from slate to copper. Gulls exploded upward from the harbour wall, screaming. The boats seemed to sit up straighter.
Tomas did not look up. He tied off the last knot, tested it with a sharp tug, and laid the net across his knees like a sleeping cat. Only then did he raise his eyes to the brightening sea, and for a moment, just a moment, his face softened into something very close to a smile.
Question 3
Read "Harbour at Dawn (GCSE-style extract)". How does the focus shift in paragraph 4 compared with paragraph 3?
- A. from the harbour to a different town
- B. from Tomas's thoughts to his past
- C. from morning to night
- D. from quiet, small sounds of the town to a sudden, dramatic burst of light
The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter
The storm had been building all afternoon. By the time the sun set, waves as tall as houses were hurling themselves against the rocks below Gull Point Lighthouse, and the wind screamed around the tower like a wild animal.
Nell pressed her face to the window of the little cottage. Her father had rowed to the mainland that morning to fetch the doctor for Mrs Penrose, and the sea had turned before he could return. Now, for the first time in her twelve years, Nell was alone at the lighthouse.
She knew what that meant. Every night at dusk, the great lamp at the top of the tower had to be lit. Without it, ships would have no warning of the rocks.
Nell grabbed the lantern and her father's oilskin coat, which hung down past her knees, and pushed open the door. The wind nearly knocked her flat. Bent double, she stumbled across the yard and into the tower.
There were one hundred and twelve steps to the top. Nell had climbed them hundreds of times, but never in the dark, never with the whole tower trembling. Halfway up, her lantern flickered and almost went out. She stopped, cupped her hand around the flame and whispered, "Not now. Please, not now."
At the top, her fingers were numb with cold. She trimmed the wick the way her father had shown her, filled the oil and struck a match. Nothing. A second match. Nothing. With the third, a tiny flame caught, grew and then blazed, and the great lens began to turn, sweeping its beam across the furious sea.
Far out in the darkness, a ship's horn sounded twice. Nell did not know whose ship it was. But she knew that, tonight, it would find its way home.
Question 4
Read "The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter". How does the writer build tension in paragraph 6?
- A. The ship crashes.
- B. Nell falls down the stairs.
- C. The father arrives home.
- D. The first two matches fail before the third one lights.
The Clever Octopus
If you wanted to design an intelligent animal from scratch, you probably would not start with a creature that has no bones, three hearts and blue blood. Yet the octopus is one of the most remarkable problem-solvers in the animal kingdom.
In laboratories, octopuses have learned to unscrew jar lids to reach crabs inside. Some have escaped from their tanks at night, crept across the floor to a neighbouring tank to eat the fish, and then returned home before morning. In the wild, veined octopuses have been filmed collecting coconut shells, carrying them across the seabed and assembling them into a portable shelter – one of the few known examples of tool use by an invertebrate.
What makes this intelligence so surprising is how different the octopus brain is from ours. About two-thirds of its roughly 500 million nerve cells are not in its head at all but in its eight arms. Each arm can taste, touch and even make simple decisions on its own. Scientists are still debating what it might feel like to be an animal whose thinking is spread throughout its body.
The octopus's cleverness may be linked to its lifestyle. Without a shell for protection, it must outwit predators by hiding, changing colour in a fraction of a second, or squeezing through gaps no bigger than its beak. Survival depends on flexible thinking.
Strangely, most octopuses live only one or two years. They have no parents to teach them and usually die soon after laying eggs. Every skill they show, they must largely work out for themselves.
Question 5
Read "The Clever Octopus". What is the relationship between paragraph 4 and the rest of the text?
- A. It suggests a cause for the octopus's intelligence.
- B. It tells a story about a single octopus.
- C. It introduces a counterargument.
- D. It describes how to keep an octopus.
The Lemonade Stand
Marcus wanted a new bike helmet, but it cost twenty dollars. He had only five.
"Why not set up a lemonade stand?" suggested his grandmother. She helped him squeeze a big bowl of lemons and stir in sugar and cold water. Marcus painted a sign that said LEMONADE – 50 CENTS.
On Saturday morning, Marcus put his table at the end of the driveway. For the first hour, nobody came. Cars zoomed past. Marcus began to think it was a silly idea.
Then he noticed that people were walking to the park across the road for a football match. He picked up his sign and moved the table right next to the park gate. Within ten minutes, a line had formed. By lunchtime, the jug was empty.
Marcus counted his coins. He had earned exactly fifteen dollars. With the five he already had, it was enough.
"You did it!" said Grandma.
"We did it," said Marcus. "And next time, I'll think about where the customers are before I start."
Question 6
Read "The Lemonade Stand". What problem did Marcus have during the first hour?
- A. He lost his money.
- B. Nobody came to buy lemonade.
- C. It started to rain.
- D. The lemonade was too sour.
How to Build a Junk Robot
Do you have a pile of empty boxes and bottle tops? Instead of throwing them away, turn them into a robot! This project takes about an hour.
You will need: one cereal box, one smaller box (such as a toothpaste box), four cardboard tubes, bottle tops, glue, scissors and some tape.
Step 1: Ask an adult to help you cut a hole in the top of the cereal box. This will be the robot's body.
Step 2: Glue the smaller box on top of the body to make the head. Hold it in place for a minute while the glue sets.
Step 3: Tape two cardboard tubes to the sides of the body for arms and two to the bottom for legs.
Step 4: Glue bottle tops onto the head for eyes and onto the body for buttons and dials.
Step 5: Leave your robot to dry overnight before you play with it.
Top tip: Give your robot a name and write it on a label. Robots with names are much more fun!
Question 7
Read "How to Build a Junk Robot". Why are the steps numbered?
- A. to make the text longer
- B. so they are followed in the right order
- C. to show which step is most fun
- D. to show how many robots to make
Lady Montagu and the Smallpox Gamble
In the early eighteenth century, smallpox was one of the most feared diseases in Europe. It killed around three in every ten people it infected and left many survivors scarred or blind. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu knew its cruelty personally: the disease had killed her brother and marked her own face.
In 1717, while living in Constantinople (now Istanbul), where her husband was the British ambassador, she observed a remarkable practice. Local women would take a small amount of material from a mild smallpox sore and scratch it into the skin of a healthy person. The person usually developed a mild illness and was then protected for life. This process was called variolation.
Montagu was so impressed that she had her young son variolated. When she returned to England, she campaigned to spread the practice, despite fierce opposition. Some doctors resented being taught by a woman; others distrusted a practice from abroad. To win public confidence, Montagu had her daughter variolated in front of physicians from the royal court.
Variolation was not without risk: a small number of patients developed severe smallpox, and they could infect others. Decades later, in 1796, Edward Jenner developed a safer method using cowpox, a related but much milder disease. His method, called vaccination after the Latin word for cow, gradually replaced variolation.
Smallpox was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980. Jenner is often called the father of vaccination, but the story began with the courage of a woman who noticed what others had overlooked.
Question 8
Read "Lady Montagu and the Smallpox Gamble". How does paragraph 4 relate to paragraph 3?
- A. It repeats the same information.
- B. It describes Montagu's childhood.
- C. It argues that Montagu was wrong.
- D. It presents a limitation of variolation and the safer method that followed.
A Helicopter on Mars
In February 2021, NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars. Tucked underneath it was a passenger: a tiny helicopter called Ingenuity. It weighed only about 1.8 kilograms, a little less than a big bag of flour.
Flying on Mars is much harder than flying on Earth. The air on Mars is extremely thin, about one hundredth as thick as the air we breathe. Helicopter blades push against the air to lift off, so with so little air, Ingenuity's blades had to spin very fast: about 2,400 times a minute.
On 19 April 2021, Ingenuity rose about three metres into the Martian sky, hovered for about forty seconds and landed again. It was the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. Engineers on Earth cheered, even though the radio signals took several minutes to reach them.
Ingenuity was only meant to make five test flights. Instead, it made 72. It scouted ahead for the rover, taking photos of rocks and slopes so that drivers on Earth could choose safe routes.
In January 2024, one of Ingenuity's blades was damaged during a landing, and the mission ended. The little helicopter still sits on Mars today, and engineers are already using what they learned to design bigger flying machines for future missions.
Question 9
Read "A Helicopter on Mars". How is this text mainly organised?
- A. as a list of opinions
- B. as a problem with no solution
- C. in time order, from landing to the end of the mission
- D. as a comparison of two planets
The Fennec Fox
The fennec fox is the smallest fox in the world. It weighs about as much as a bag of sugar. It lives in the Sahara Desert in North Africa, one of the hottest places on Earth.
The first thing most people notice about the fennec fox is its enormous ears. They can be as long as 15 centimetres, which is huge for such a small animal. The ears do two important jobs. First, they let heat escape from the fox's body, helping it to stay cool. Second, they are so sensitive that the fox can hear insects moving under the sand.
The fennec fox has other ways to survive in the desert, too. Thick fur on the bottoms of its feet protects it from the burning sand. During the hottest part of the day, it rests in a cool burrow underground. It comes out to hunt at night, when the air is cooler.
Water is hard to find in the desert, but the fennec fox can go a long time without drinking. It gets most of the water it needs from the food it eats, such as insects, plants and small animals.
Question 10
Read "The Fennec Fox". How is paragraph 2 mainly organised?
- A. It describes a feature and then explains its uses.
- B. It gives instructions.
- C. It compares two kinds of fox.
- D. It tells a story in time order.
The Margin
Zainab had read the library book three times before she noticed the handwriting.
It was in the margin of page 112, so faint she had taken it for a smudge. In tiny, slanted letters, someone had written: "Don't trust the narrator." Underneath, in different ink and a rounder hand, someone else had replied: "Why not?" And beneath that, in the first writer's slant: "Read chapter 9 again."
She read chapter 9 again. Then she read it a fourth time, and a fifth, and on the sixth she saw it – a single sentence where the narrator claimed to have been at home when, three chapters earlier, he had described himself on a train. A lie, hidden in plain sight. The whole story tilted, like a picture knocked crooked on a wall.
Zainab sat back. She checked the date stamps on the card inside the front cover. The book had been borrowed forty-seven times since 1994. Somewhere among those forty-seven readers were two people who had held a conversation across years without ever meeting.
She found a pencil. For a long time she hesitated over the page, feeling as if she were about to speak in a room full of strangers. Then, carefully, beneath the other two, she wrote: "Found it. Thank you."
When she returned the book, the librarian frowned at the pencil marks. Zainab apologised. But as she walked home, she wondered who would be next to find them.
Question 11
Read "The Margin". What is the effect of the final sentence?
- A. It suggests the chain of readers will continue.
- B. It reveals who the first writer was.
- C. It ends the story with a twist about the librarian.
- D. It shows Zainab regrets writing.
The Moon's Night Walk (a poem)
The moon puts on her silver coat
and tiptoes up the sky.
She hums a tune to sleepy owls
and winks at clouds nearby.
She paints the rooftops pearly white,
she lights the cat's way home,
she peeps into the children's rooms
to check they're not alone.
She counts the stars like sleeping sheep,
she sings the sea to rest,
she hangs a lantern on the hill
for travellers in the west.
And when the sun yawns in the east
and stretches out his rays,
the moon slips off her silver coat
and hides away for days.
But look up on a quiet night
when all the town's asleep:
she's tiptoeing across the sky
with promises to keep.
Question 12
Read "The Moon's Night Walk (a poem)". Which words rhyme in the first verse?
- A. coat and owls
- B. moon and tune
- C. silver and sleepy
- D. sky and nearby
Why Do Leaves Change in Autumn?
In many parts of the world, autumn turns forests into blazes of yellow, orange and red. But where do these bright shades come from? The answer is hidden inside every leaf.
During spring and summer, leaves are busy making food for the tree. To do this, they use sunlight, water and air. A green substance called chlorophyll captures the energy from sunlight. There is so much chlorophyll in a leaf that it hides all the other shades.
As autumn arrives, the days grow shorter and there is less sunlight. Trees such as maples and oaks begin to get ready for winter. They stop making chlorophyll. As the green fades away, the yellows and oranges that were in the leaf all along begin to show.
Some trees, such as certain maples, also make a brand-new red substance in autumn. This is why some leaves turn bright red or purple.
Finally, the tree seals off each leaf where it joins the branch. The leaf dries out and falls. Without leaves, the tree uses less water during the cold winter months. In spring, new green leaves will grow, and the cycle will begin again.
Question 13
Read "Why Do Leaves Change in Autumn?". Which text structure is mainly used in paragraph 3?
- A. problem and solution
- B. compare and contrast
- C. cause and effect
- D. a personal story
Inside a Volcano
Deep beneath our feet, the Earth is extremely hot – hot enough to melt rock. This melted rock is called magma. Because magma is lighter than the solid rock around it, it slowly rises upward. Sometimes it collects in a huge underground pool called a magma chamber.
A volcano forms where magma finds a way to the surface. When the pressure in the magma chamber becomes too great, the magma bursts out through cracks or vents. Once it reaches the surface, it is called lava. Over time, layers of cooled lava and ash can build up to form a mountain.
Most volcanoes are found near the edges of tectonic plates, the giant slabs of rock that make up the Earth's outer layer. More than half of the world's active volcanoes surround the Pacific Ocean, in a horseshoe-shaped zone known as the Ring of Fire.
Scientists sort volcanoes into three groups. Active volcanoes have erupted recently and could erupt again. Dormant volcanoes have not erupted for a very long time but might wake up in the future. Extinct volcanoes are not expected to erupt ever again.
Although eruptions can be deadly, volcanoes also bring benefits. Volcanic ash breaks down into rich soil, which is why many farms are found on the slopes of old volcanoes. In some countries, such as Iceland, the heat from underground is used to warm homes and produce electricity.
Question 14
Read "Inside a Volcano". How is paragraph 4 organised?
- A. It tells events in time order.
- B. It describes a problem and its solution.
- C. It classifies volcanoes into groups.
- D. It argues for one opinion.
The Attic
The attic door had been painted shut for as long as Daniel could remember. His mother said there was nothing up there but dust and old suitcases. So when the decorators scraped away the paint on the first Saturday of the summer holidays, Daniel was the first one up the narrow stairs.
The air was thick and warm and smelt of mothballs. Thin blades of light slid through gaps in the roof tiles and lay across the floorboards like fallen swords. In the far corner, beneath a sheet greyed with age, something waited.
Daniel crossed the room slowly. Each board groaned beneath him as if complaining about being woken. He reached out, hesitated, then pulled the sheet away in one quick movement.
It was a desk – small, battered, and covered in carvings. Initials. Dates. A crooked drawing of a sailing boat. And there, in the corner, carved more deeply than all the rest, were three letters he knew better than his own name: D.A.M.
Daniel Adebayo Mensah. His grandfather. The grandfather who had died two years before Daniel was born, and whom his mother never spoke about.
He ran his fingers over the letters. Downstairs, someone switched on a radio, and a burst of music floated up through the floor. Daniel did not move. For the first time, the silence in the attic did not feel empty. It felt like someone waiting to tell him a story.
Question 15
Read "The Attic". Why does the writer reveal the initials D.A.M. before explaining who they belong to?
- A. because the reader already knows
- B. to create a moment of suspense before the discovery
- C. to show Daniel cannot read
- D. to change the setting
A Day at the Fire Station
Firefighters do much more than put out fires. At Station 9, the day begins at eight o'clock sharp with a check of every piece of equipment. The crew test the hoses, check the air tanks and make sure the ladders slide smoothly. "If something is broken, we need to know now, not when there's an emergency," says Captain Rivera.
After the checks, the firefighters exercise for an hour. Their job is very physical. They must carry heavy hoses, climb ladders in thick protective suits and sometimes carry people to safety.
In the afternoon, the crew often visit schools to teach children about fire safety. They show how to check smoke alarms and explain why you should never hide during a fire. "Get out, stay out, and call for help," Captain Rivera tells every class.
When the alarm rings, everything changes. The crew pull on their gear, jump into the fire engine and are on their way in less than a minute. Calls might be for a house fire, a car accident or even a cat stuck up a tree. Whatever the emergency, the firefighters of Station 9 are ready.
Question 16
Read "A Day at the Fire Station". How is this text mostly organised?
- A. in the order things happen during the day
- B. as a problem and solution
- C. as a comparison of two stations
- D. as a list of fire facts
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