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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.

Canals and Railways

Between 1760 and 1830 Britain built about four thousand miles of canal. Within forty years of that, most of it was losing money. A canal boat carried thirty tons behind one horse, where a cart carried two. That was transformative for coal and stone, which are heavy, cheap and not in a hurry. But a canal cannot climb without locks, cannot be built where there is no water, and freezes. A boat averaged three miles an hour. The railways did not beat canals on cost per ton at first. They beat them on speed, on reliability, and on where they could go — a railway can cross a watershed a canal cannot. Many canal companies were bought by railway companies, sometimes specifically in order to close them. By 1900 most of the network carried nothing. Some of it is now used more than it ever was, by people on holiday.

  1. 1. Summarise this text.
  2. 2. Explain the relationship between a canal's limitations and the railways' success.
  3. 3. Why would a railway company buy a canal in order to close it?
2.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. Why does the author say the third cause is hardest to see?
  2. 2. Summarise this text.
  3. 3. Explain the relationship between concentration and the population figures.

LessonPrint · RI.5.10 · Set 25 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Following a Weighed Argument

Set 25. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Canals moved heavy goods fifteen times more efficiently than carts, but locks, water and three miles an hour lost to railways, and the network now carries holidaymakers. 2. Locks, water supply, freezing and three miles an hour were limits a railway did not share, so railways won on reliability and reach. 3. To remove a competitor on the same route.
  2. 2.1. Because it does not appear in national figures at all — only in particular towns'. 2. 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. 3. Because mills were the only employer in particular towns, the losses show in those towns' populations rather than in national ones.

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