"Four score and seven years" refers to how many years?

87 (A "score" is twenty. Four score (80) plus seven equals 87.)

Why does Lincoln say the living cannot truly consecrate the ground?

Because the soldiers who fought already made it sacred through their sacrifice (Lincoln argues the brave men "have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract." Their sacrifice, not the speech, hallows the ground.)

What does Lincoln urge the living to do?

Dedicate themselves to the unfinished work the soldiers advanced (He calls the living "to be dedicated here to the unfinished work" the fallen had "so nobly advanced.")

The Gettysburg Address: Level 4 Reading Comprehension Questions

Q: According to the speech, why have the listeners gathered at the battlefield?

To dedicate part of the field as a resting place for those who died there (Lincoln says, "We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.")

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

Source: Abraham Lincoln, 1863. Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863). Public domain.

Comprehension questions