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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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Following a Weighed Argument

RI.5.10

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

What Happened to the Textile Towns

Between 1965 and 1990 the British textile industry lost roughly four fifths of its jobs. Three causes are usually given, and they are not equally weighted. Cost is the one most often cited. Spinning and weaving are labour-intensive, and wages in the countries that took the work were a fraction of British wages. This explains a great deal. Investment matters too. Much British machinery dated from before the war. Where firms did re-equip — and some did — they survived longer, which suggests the cost argument is not the whole story. The third cause is the hardest to see: the industry was concentrated. A car plant closing takes a town's largest employer; a mill closing often took its only one, along with the suppliers and the shops that depended on it. That concentration is why the closures show up in the population figures of particular towns and not in national ones.

  1. 1. Summarise this text.
  2. 2. Explain the relationship between concentration and the population figures.
  3. 3. Why does the author say the third cause is hardest to see?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Two Plants, Two Histories

Tea and coffee are both leaves or seeds steeped in hot water, and both became national habits. How they got there could hardly be more different. Tea came to Britain through a monopoly. The East India Company controlled the trade for nearly two centuries, and the government taxed it so heavily that by the 1770s most tea drunk in Britain had been smuggled. When the tax was cut in 1784, smuggling collapsed almost overnight. Coffee spread through places rather than trade. The coffee house arrived in Britain in the 1650s and became somewhere to read newspapers and argue. Lloyd's of London and the London Stock Exchange both began in one. Tea won the home; coffee won the meeting. Neither plant grows in Britain. Both habits are entirely imported, and both are now so ordinary that they are thought of as native.

  1. 1. Why does the text end by saying both are thought of as native?
  2. 2. Summarise this text.
  3. 3. Explain the relationship between the tax and the smuggling.

LessonPrint · RI.5.10 · Set 20 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Following a Weighed Argument

Set 20. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. British textiles lost four fifths of its jobs to lower foreign wages, ageing machinery and a concentration that turned each closure into a town's whole economy. 2. Because mills were the only employer in particular towns, the losses show in those towns' populations rather than in national ones. 3. Because it does not appear in national figures at all — only in particular towns'.
  2. 2.1. To make the point that an imported habit can become invisible as an import. 2. Tea reached Britain through a taxed monopoly that produced mass smuggling; coffee spread through coffee houses that became institutions — and neither plant grows here. 3. The tax was so heavy that most tea was smuggled; cutting it in 1784 removed the reason and smuggling collapsed.

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