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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 21 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.

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. How many textile jobs were lost between 1965 and 1990?
  2. 2. Identify which evidence supports which of the three causes.
  3. 3. What is the author's purpose, and how do you know?
  4. 4. Determine two main ideas of this text and explain how details support each.
2.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. What speed did a canal boat average?
  2. 2. How much could one horse pull on a canal, compared with on a road?
  3. 3. How many miles of canal were built between 1760 and 1830?
  4. 4. The text claims railways did not win on cost. What evidence is given for what they did win on?

LessonPrint · RI.5.10 · Set 21 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 5 Fact Text

Set 21. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Roughly four fifths. 2. Cost: the wage difference. Investment: pre-war machinery and the survival of re-equipped firms. Concentration: the single-employer towns and the population figures. 3. To weigh three explanations rather than assert one — each is introduced and then qualified. 4. 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.
  2. 2.1. Three miles an hour. 2. Thirty tons on the canal against two on a cart. 3. About four thousand. 4. Speed, reliability, and reach — specifically that a railway can cross a watershed a canal cannot.

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.