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Compare Two Characters is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on comparing characters using specific details, aligned to Common Core standard RL.5.3. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 22 of them with different questions, so no two pupils in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 23 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 22 of these 25 sets ask different questions — this skill does not have 25 questions to give. The rest reorder them, so no two pupils have the same paper in front of them.

Compare Two Characters

RL.5.3

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Pandora

The gods made Pandora and gave her, between them, everything: beauty, skill, a voice, curiosity. They also gave her a jar, and told her not to open it. They did not say what was in it. She kept it for a long time. The story is usually told as though she opened it immediately. She did not. When she did lift the lid, out came sickness, hunger, grief and every trouble that has since been ordinary. She got the lid back on with one thing still inside. That thing was hope. And people have argued for three thousand years about whether keeping it in was a mercy or the cruellest part of all.

  1. 1. What does "She kept it for a long time" add to her character?
  2. 2. Compare Pandora's gifts with what happens to her.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Mill: Mr Whately's Account

I did not close the mill. The mill closed. For eleven years I put my own money in. In 1979 I sold my house and moved into the office above the weaving floor, and nobody knew that but my accountant. People say I should have told them earlier. I have thought about that more than they have. If I had said in January that we might not last the year, half the workforce would have left by February, and then we certainly would not have. I held on until the day I could not pay them. Then I told them. I have been told this was cowardice. I would call it arithmetic.

  1. 1. Compare how Mr Whately sees himself with how others see him.
  2. 2. What do his actions in 1979 tell you, and why does he mention that nobody knew?

LessonPrint · RL.5.3 · Set 23 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Compare Two Characters

Set 23. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. It makes her deliberate rather than impulsive, which is the opposite of the usual telling. 2. Curiosity is given to her by the same gods who then forbid her the one thing it would act on.
  2. 2.1. He sees a man doing arithmetic and holding on; others see cowardice and a failure to warn them. 2. He sacrificed his house for the mill, and the secrecy shows he expected no credit for it.

More practice for RL.5.3

Compare two characters or settings using specific details.

Teaching this next? Comparing Characters and Settings is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 5 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.5.3 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.