Reading Worksheet · Grades 4–6
Catherine the Great Worksheet
A printable reading comprehension worksheet for grades 4-6 on Catherine the Great. Students read a one-page biography covering her arrival in Russia at fourteen, the 1762 coup that made her empress, her reforms in law, schooling and public health, the Black Sea wars, and the spread of serfdom, then answer four multiple-choice questions, six true-or-false statements, and six fill-ins. A complete answer key is included.
Free with a free account — no card needed.
Subject
Reading
Grades
Grades 4–6
Skill Focus
Catherine the Great, informational text
Lesson Length
40 minutes
Learning Objective
Students will read a biography of Catherine the Great and explain how she took the Russian throne and what her reign meant for the nobility and the peasants.
Lesson Overview
About this worksheet
Catherine the Great ruled Russia for thirty-four years and was not Russian. She was born a princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, a small German state, and came to Russia at fourteen to marry the heir to the throne. She learned the language, joined the Russian church, and made herself useful for eighteen years before she took power.
Her husband reigned six months. Peter admired Frederick the Great of Prussia so openly that he pulled Russia out of a war it was winning and gave back everything its armies had taken, and the guards regiments turned on him. With the help of Grigory Orlov, an officer of the guard, Catherine was proclaimed empress in the summer of 1762.
What she did with the throne is the substance of the worksheet. She took the church’s lands for the state, called a commission to write a new code of laws that argued for more than a year and never wrote one, founded schools and expanded the universities, and in 1768, with smallpox killing thousands, had herself inoculated in front of the court so nobody could call it too dangerous. She won a warm-water coastline from the Ottoman Turks and took part in carving up Poland until it vanished from the map. She also pushed more Russians into serfdom than any ruler before her, because she owed her throne to the nobles and paid them for it. The passage ends on both halves of that record rather than one.
Page 2 has sixteen questions in three forms: multiple choice, true or false, and fill in the missing word. Page 3 is a complete answer key with a short reason recorded beside every false statement. For a Russian ruler two centuries earlier, see the Ivan the Terrible Worksheet.
How to Use This Lesson
Read the passage on page 1.
Answer the four multiple-choice questions in Section A.
Mark each Section B statement TRUE or FALSE, and be ready to say why.
Write the missing word in each Section C sentence.
Use the answer key on page 3 for self-check or grading.
Discuss the last sentence: can both halves of her record be true at once?
Printable Resource
A classroom-ready PDF with everything in one printable resource.
Free Member Resource · Printable PDF · 3 pages · Answer Key
Catherine the Great Worksheet
A printable reading comprehension worksheet for grades 4-6 on Catherine the Great. Students read a one-page biography covering her arrival in Russia at fourteen, the 1762 coup that made her empress, her reforms in law, schooling and public health, the Black Sea wars, and the spread of serfdom, then answer four multiple-choice questions, six true-or-false statements, and six fill-ins. A complete answer key is included.
Keep Exploring Reading
Related Worksheets
More for Grades 4–6Author’s Tone Worksheet · Author’s Word Choice Worksheet · Biography and Autobiography Worksheet · Claims and Evidence Worksheet · Comparing a Book and a Movie Worksheet · Conflict in Stories Worksheet