Critical Thinking Worksheet Grades K-2: Inference | Education World - Free Printable

Let's solve the problem step by step.

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Task: "An Indecent Chicken?"

We are given a short story and asked to:

1. Make an inference based on the evidence in the story.
2. Write the sentence number that best supports your answer.

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Story Summary:

- One major cost of processing chicken is removing feathers.
- People prefer eating chicken without picking feathers out of their teeth.
- Scientists developed featherless chickens in 1975 (naked chickens).
- These chickens were never caught on with growers because they had another problem that added to their costs.
- Question: *Can you deduce what the new problem was?*

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Step 1: Analyze the Story

We know:
- The goal was to reduce costs by eliminating feather removal.
- The new chickens were featherless, so no need to remove feathers.
- But growers didn’t adopt them — because there was another problem that added to costs.

So, even though the chickens were easier to process (no feathers), something else made them more expensive or impractical.

Now, think about what might be missing when chickens have no feathers?

Feathers serve important functions:
- Insulation – help regulate body temperature.
- Protection from the elements.
- Without feathers, chickens may be more vulnerable to cold, sunburn, or disease.

So, featherless chickens might require:
- Extra heating (in cold weather),
- Special housing,
- More care,
- Higher mortality rates,
- Increased feed costs due to energy loss.

Thus, the new problem was likely that the featherless chickens required more care or resources, increasing costs.

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Inference:

> The new problem was that the featherless chickens could not regulate their body temperature well, leading to higher costs for heating, shelter, or increased mortality.

This is a logical inference based on the fact that feathers provide insulation, and removing them would make the chickens more vulnerable.

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Supporting Sentence:

The key sentence is:

> "But this new type of naked chicken never caught on with chicken growers because they were presented with another problem that added to their costs."

That’s Sentence 4 (if we count the sentences):

1. "One of the major costs..."
2. "Most people prefer..."
3. "Scientists set to work..."
4. "But this new type..." ← This one

So, Sentence 4 directly states the issue — a new problem increased costs.

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✔ Final Answers:

Your conclusion:
The featherless chickens lacked insulation, making them more vulnerable to temperature changes, which required extra care and increased costs.

Write the number of the sentence that best supports your answer:
4

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Now, the Definitions Section

We are given a word box:

```
wept dock pig chew read
jump feed raced rat ice
```

We need to match each definition to a word from the box.

Let’s go one by one:

1. big hog → pig
*(A big hog = a large pig)*

2. nice for skating → ice
*(Ice is good for skating)*

3. haste makes waste → raced
*(“Raced” implies haste; “haste makes waste” means rushing causes mistakes)*

4. a pier made of rock → dock
*(A dock can be made of stone/rock)*

5. chased by a cat → rat
*(Rats are often chased by cats)*

6. lead to dinner → feed
*(To lead to dinner = to feed)*

7. kept crying → wept
*(Synonym for kept crying)*

8. fed the mind → read
*(Reading feeds the mind)*

9. hopped the hump → jump
*(“Hopped the hump” = jumped over the hump)*

10. turn food into goo → chew
*(Chewing turns food into a soft mass)*

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✔ Definitions Answers:

1. pig
2. ice
3. raced
4. dock
5. rat
6. feed
7. wept
8. read
9. jump
10. chew

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✔ Final Answer Sheet:

Conclusion:
The featherless chickens were unable to regulate their body temperature without feathers, requiring additional care and increasing production costs.

Supporting sentence number: 4

Definitions:

1. pig
2. ice
3. raced
4. dock
5. rat
6. feed
7. wept
8. read
9. jump
10. chew

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Let me know if you'd like this formatted as a printable answer sheet!