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Figurative Language in a Text is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on explaining a metaphor or simile as it is used here, aligned to Common Core standard RL.5.4. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 21 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 8 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 21 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.

Figurative Language in a Text

RL.5.4

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Bell

Stanza one: The church has gone. They took the stone for walls and gateposts, load by load. Where the aisle was there is a field. Where the door was there is a road. Stanza two: The bell they could not sell or break. It hung in a barn for eighty years, green with the damp, out of the way, mute as a stone among the gears. Stanza three: Last spring they hung it in the school. It rings at nine and rings at three. The children do not know its age and ring it anyway, and it is free. Stanza four: So the building went, and the faith went, and the road runs where the door was cut, and still the sound the masons heard goes out at nine, and comes back, and stops.

  1. 1. "Mute as a stone among the gears" — what is being compared, and why does it work?
  2. 2. "The faith went" — what does this mean, and how is it different from "the building went"?
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. "I would call it arithmetic" — what is he doing with this word?

LessonPrint · RL.5.4 · Set 8 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Figurative Language in a Text

Set 8. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. The silent bell is compared to a stone — and the church's own stone was carted away, which ties the images together. 2. The building went by demolition and the faith went by change of belief; the poem sets the two losses side by side.
  2. 2.1. He reframes the charge of cowardice as arithmetic — a calculation rather than a moral failure.

More practice for RL.5.4

Work out what words mean here, including metaphors and similes.

Teaching this next? Figurative Language and Connotation is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 5 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.5.4 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.