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Reading a Grade 5 Text is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on reading a whole Grade 5 text and answering across it, aligned to Common Core standard RL.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 17 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 Text

RL.5.10

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Orpheus Looks Back

Orpheus played so well that rivers changed course to listen. When his wife Eurydice died, he went down to argue with the dead. He played to the ferryman, who took him free. He played to the three-headed dog, which lay down. He played to the king of the underworld, who wept, and who had never wept. The king gave one condition. Eurydice would follow him up, and he must not look back until both of them stood in the light. He climbed for a day. He could not hear her footsteps — the dead make none — and he had only the king's word. Ten paces from the daylight, he turned round. She was there. That was the last he saw of her.

  1. 1. What was the king's condition?
  2. 2. Why could Orpheus not hear Eurydice behind him?
  3. 3. What does the king's weeping tell you about the music, and about the king?
  4. 4. How close to the daylight was he when he turned?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Mill: Ivy Sallow's Account

We knew by the thread. You cannot work a loom for twenty-two years and not notice when the good cotton stops coming. From about the March, it was the cheap stuff, and it broke. So we knew something. What we did not know was how long we had, and that is the part I mind. I could have been looking. My sister found work in Derby that spring and asked me twice. I said the mill would see me out. He stood on a crate on the Friday and told us. Somebody asked how long he had known. He said he would rather not say. That was the answer, really.

  1. 1. Summarise this account.
  2. 2. What does turning down her sister twice tell you about Ivy?
  3. 3. How long had Ivy worked a loom?
  4. 4. Determine a theme of this account and support it with details.

LessonPrint · RL.5.10 · Set 17 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 5 Text

Set 17. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. That Orpheus must not look back until both of them stood in the light. 2. The dead make no footsteps. 3. That the music reached somebody it had no business reaching — "who had never wept". 4. Ten paces.
  2. 2.1. Ivy knew from the failing thread that the mill was struggling, turned down work in Derby, and learned the closure date only when Whately announced it on a Friday. 2. That her loyalty to the mill cost her a real alternative. 3. Twenty-two years. 4. Being kept from information takes away the chance to act — she could have taken Derby if she had known how long she had.

More practice for RL.5.10

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