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Following a Weighed Argument is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on holding several competing claims together while reading, aligned to Common Core standard RI.5.10. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions that each ask 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.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. All 25 sets ask different questions.

Following a Weighed Argument

RI.5.10

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

How a Vaccine Teaches the Body

Your immune system learns. Meet a disease once and, if you survive it, you are usually protected afterwards. A vaccine gives the lesson without the disease. The method is old. In eighteenth-century Britain, milkmaids were known not to catch smallpox. Edward Jenner reasoned that the cowpox they caught from cattle was protecting them, and in 1796 he tested it on a boy — a procedure no ethics committee would permit now. A modern vaccine shows the immune system a harmless piece of a pathogen: a killed virus, a weakened one, or a single protein from its surface. The body makes antibodies against that piece, and keeps the recipe. Because the recipe is kept, the real pathogen is met by a defence already in place. There is a second effect. If enough people are immune, the pathogen cannot find a chain of hosts, so those who cannot be vaccinated are protected too. That effect fails below a threshold, which is why coverage rather than availability is what matters.

  1. 1. Why does the text mention that no ethics committee would permit Jenner's test?
  2. 2. Summarise this text.
  3. 3. Explain the relationship between the number of people immune and the safety of those who are not.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Can You Do Two Things at Once?

People say they multitask. Mostly they do not. The brain can run two tasks together only if at least one is automatic. Walking and talking works because walking is automatic for an adult. Reading and listening to speech does not, because both need the same language system. What feels like multitasking is usually rapid switching. Each switch costs time — a fraction of a second to disengage and re-engage — and the costs add up. In experiments, people doing two tasks alternately take substantially longer in total than doing them one after the other, and make more errors. They also do not notice. Switching feels efficient because you are busy the whole time. The practical conclusion is unpopular but consistent: for anything demanding, doing one thing at a time is faster.

  1. 1. Summarise this text.
  2. 2. Why does the author say the conclusion is "unpopular"?
  3. 3. Explain the relationship between switching and the errors people make.

LessonPrint · RI.5.10 · Set 16 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Following a Weighed Argument

Set 16. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. To be honest that the method's origin would be unacceptable today, without discarding the science. 2. A vaccine shows the immune system a harmless piece of a pathogen so it keeps the antibody recipe, and above a coverage threshold it also protects those who cannot be vaccinated. 3. If enough are immune the pathogen cannot find a chain of hosts, so the unvaccinated are protected — but only above a threshold.
  2. 2.1. Genuine multitasking needs one automatic task; what feels like it is rapid switching, which costs time and accuracy without feeling like it does. 2. Because people believe they multitask well and the evidence says otherwise. 3. Each switch costs time to disengage and re-engage, and alternating tasks produces both longer times and more errors.

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RI.5.10 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.