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Information in Other Forms is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on taking meaning from visual and quantitative material, aligned to Common Core standard SL.5.2. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 24 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. 24 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.

Information in Other Forms

SL.5.2

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Why the Rails Are That Far Apart

Standard gauge is 4 feet 8½ inches. It is a strange number, and the reason is historical rather than engineering. Early railways were built by people who had built tramways for collieries, and those had used the wheel spacing of the carts already in use. Nobody chose it; it was inherited. Isambard Kingdom Brunel did choose. He built the Great Western at 7 feet ¼ inch, and by most measures it was better: faster, steadier, and able to carry more. He lost anyway. By the 1840s, more of the network was already standard gauge, and a train cannot run on a track it does not fit. Parliament settled it in 1846. Between 1846 and 1892 the Great Western converted its entire route. The final conversion took a single weekend and about four thousand men. The best design does not always win. The one that connects to everything else does.

  1. 1. How would a diagram of the two gauges help?
  2. 2. What would an illustration of the final conversion need to convey?
  3. 3. Explain the relationship between the size of the network and Brunel's defeat.
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. Explain the relationship between the tax and the smuggling.
  2. 2. What would an illustration for this text most usefully show?
  3. 3. How would a two-column table help a reader of this text?

LessonPrint · SL.5.2 · Set 8 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Information in Other Forms

Set 8. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. It would show the difference between 4 feet 8½ inches and 7 feet ¼ inch, which numbers alone do not convey. 2. Four thousand men moving one rail inwards along an entire route in a weekend. 3. More track was already standard gauge, and since a train cannot run on a track it does not fit, the bigger network won.
  2. 2.1. The tax was so heavy that most tea was smuggled; cutting it in 1784 removed the reason and smuggling collapsed. 2. A coffee house interior beside a domestic tea table. 3. It could set tea and coffee against each other on route, mechanism and result.

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to SL.5.2 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.