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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 9 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.

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. How would a bar chart help a reader of this text?
  2. 2. What would a diagram for this text need to show?
  3. 3. Explain the relationship between switching and the errors people make.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Why the Thames Froze

Between 1309 and 1814 the Thames froze hard enough to walk on at least twenty-four times. Since 1814 it has not once. The usual explanation is that the climate has warmed. That is part of it, and not most of it. Old London Bridge had nineteen arches on wide stone piers. The piers took up so much of the channel that the bridge acted as a weir, slowing the water upstream almost to a standstill. Still water freezes; moving water does not. The river was also shallower and wider then, spreading over land that has since been embanked. Shallow water loses heat faster. Old London Bridge was demolished in 1831. The embankments were built between 1862 and 1874. The river that flows through London now is narrower, deeper and faster than the one that froze — and it would not freeze in a colder winter than any of those.

  1. 1. What would a diagram for this text need to compare?
  2. 2. Explain the relationship between the bridge's piers and the freezing.
  3. 3. How would a diagram of Old London Bridge help a reader?

LessonPrint · SL.5.2 · Set 9 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Information in Other Forms

Set 9. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. It could show total time for alternating tasks against doing them one after another. 2. Two tasks alternating with a gap at each switch, against the same two done in sequence. 3. Each switch costs time to disengage and re-engage, and alternating tasks produces both longer times and more errors.
  2. 2.1. The old wide shallow river with its many-piered bridge against the modern narrow, deep, embanked one. 2. The wide piers made the bridge a weir, which slowed the water upstream almost to a standstill, and still water freezes. 3. It could show how much of the channel the nineteen piers blocked, which is the whole argument.

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