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Reading a Grade 5 Fact Text is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on reading a whole argued text and answering across it, 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.

Set 13 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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

Reading a Grade 5 Fact Text

RI.5.10

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. Determine two main ideas of this text and explain how details support each.
  2. 2. How long did the final conversion take?
  3. 3. What gauge did Brunel choose?
  4. 4. What is standard gauge?
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. What is the author's purpose, and how do you know?
  2. 2. How old was much of the British machinery?
  3. 3. Determine two main ideas of this text and explain how details support each.
  4. 4. Identify which evidence supports which of the three causes.

LessonPrint · RI.5.10 · Set 13 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 5 Fact Text

Set 13. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. First, standard gauge was inherited, not designed — supported by the colliery carts. Second, compatibility beat quality — supported by Brunel losing despite a better gauge. 2. A single weekend, with about four thousand men. 3. 7 feet ¼ inch. 4. 4 feet 8½ inches.
  2. 2.1. To weigh three explanations rather than assert one — each is introduced and then qualified. 2. It dated from before the war. 3. First, cost was the largest but not the only cause — supported by firms that re-equipped surviving longer. Second, concentration made the damage local — supported by the population figures. 4. Cost: the wage difference. Investment: pre-war machinery and the survival of re-equipped firms. Concentration: the single-employer towns and the population figures.

More practice for RI.5.10

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