Summarize a Text
Grade 4 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me
Read the text. Circle the sentence that best summarizes the part named.
Read this first
Robots on Mars
Mars is a cold, dusty planet millions of miles from Earth. No person has ever stood on its surface. Yet for more than twenty-five years, scientists have explored Mars by sending robots called rovers. Each new rover has been bigger, smarter, and better at finding clues about the planet's past.
The first rover, Sojourner, landed in 1997. It was about the size of a microwave oven. It rolled only about a hundred yards in all, never leaving sight of its landing craft. Still, it proved that a robot could drive on Mars and study rocks.
In 2004, twin rovers named Spirit and Opportunity landed on opposite sides of the planet. Each was about the size of a golf cart. Scientists hoped they would last ninety days. Instead, Spirit worked for six years, and Opportunity kept rolling for almost fifteen. Opportunity found tiny round pebbles that form in water. The pebbles showed that Mars once had water on its surface.
Driving a rover is tricky. A radio signal takes up to about twenty-four minutes to travel between Earth and Mars. If a rover were steered like a toy car, it could tip over before anyone knew. So the team sends a list of instructions once a day. The rover follows them and uses its cameras to steer around rocks.
Curiosity, which landed in 2012, is as big as a car. It carries a laser that can heat a tiny spot on a rock from twenty feet away. A camera studies the light that glows, which shows what the rock is made of. Curiosity discovered that its landing area was once the bottom of a lake. Long ago, that lake held the kind of water tiny living things need.
The newest rover, Perseverance, landed in 2021 in a dry lake bed. Its job is to look for signs that tiny life once existed there. It drills into rocks and seals samples in small metal tubes. Scientists hope a future mission will bring the tubes back to Earth.
Perseverance did not travel alone. It carried a small helicopter named Ingenuity. Flying on Mars is difficult, because the air is very thin. Ingenuity was planned for five short test flights. It flew seventy-two times, becoming the first aircraft to fly under its own power on another planet.
Each rover built on the lessons of the one before it. Together, they have turned Mars from a red dot in the sky into a place scientists know well. Someday, their discoveries may help the first human explorers decide where to land.
Which sentence best summarizes the whole text?
- Each Mars rover built on the last, finding signs of water and looking for past life.
- Opportunity lasted almost fifteen years and found pebbles that form in water.
- Rovers are steered live from Earth, and they have found living things on Mars.
- Rovers have explored Mars, which is the most interesting planet in the sky.
Which sentence best summarizes the third paragraph?
- Two rovers far outlasted their plans and showed Mars once had water.
- Two golf-cart rovers stopped working after ninety days.
- Two rovers landed together in the very same spot.
- Spirit found the pebbles while Opportunity studied lakes.
Which sentence best summarizes the fifth paragraph?
- Curiosity found that its landing area was once a lake.
- Curiosity was small and rolled only about a hundred yards.
- Curiosity found living things at the bottom of a lake.
- Curiosity was the first rover to land on Mars in 1997.
Which sentence best summarizes the sixth paragraph?
- Perseverance has already brought rock samples back to Earth.
- Perseverance drives itself with no instructions from Earth.
- Perseverance landed on a lake bed and found living things.
- Perseverance looks for past life and saves rock samples.