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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 4 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.

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. What is the author's purpose, and how do you know?
  2. 2. Which two institutions began in a coffee house?
  3. 3. Who controlled the tea trade?
  4. 4. The text makes two claims about how each drink spread. Identify the evidence for each.
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 did a mill closing often take with it?
  2. 2. Determine two main ideas of this text and explain how details support each.
  3. 3. How many textile jobs were lost between 1965 and 1990?
  4. 4. What is the author's purpose, and how do you know?

LessonPrint · RI.5.10 · Set 4 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 5 Fact Text

Set 4. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. To compare two histories rather than tell one — the structure alternates and the fourth paragraph draws the contrast. 2. Lloyd's of London and the London Stock Exchange. 3. The East India Company. 4. Tea: the East India Company monopoly, the tax and the smuggling. Coffee: the coffee house, and the institutions founded in them.
  2. 2.1. The town's only employer, plus the suppliers and shops that depended on it. 2. 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. 3. Roughly four fifths. 4. To weigh three explanations rather than assert one — each is introduced and then qualified.

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.