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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 2 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.

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. What did Ivy tell her sister?
  2. 2. How long had Ivy worked a loom?
  3. 3. Summarise this account.
  4. 4. What told the workers something was wrong?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Pandora

The gods made Pandora and gave her, between them, everything: beauty, skill, a voice, curiosity. They also gave her a jar, and told her not to open it. They did not say what was in it. She kept it for a long time. The story is usually told as though she opened it immediately. She did not. When she did lift the lid, out came sickness, hunger, grief and every trouble that has since been ordinary. She got the lid back on with one thing still inside. That thing was hope. And people have argued for three thousand years about whether keeping it in was a mercy or the cruellest part of all.

  1. 1. What does "She kept it for a long time" add to her character?
  2. 2. Summarise this myth.
  3. 3. What was left inside the jar?
  4. 4. Were the gods explicit about what was inside?

LessonPrint · RL.5.10 · Set 2 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Reading a Grade 5 Text

Set 2. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. That the mill would see her out. 2. Twenty-two years. 3. 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. 4. The good cotton stopped coming and the cheap thread broke.
  2. 2.1. It makes her deliberate rather than impulsive, which is the opposite of the usual telling. 2. The gods gave Pandora every gift including curiosity and a jar she must not open; when she finally did, every trouble escaped and only hope stayed in. 3. Hope. 4. No — they told her not to open it but did not say what was in it.

More practice for RL.5.10

Read and understand harder Grade 4-5 literature on your own.

Teaching this next? Reading Grade 5 Literature is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

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