Summarise a Literary Text is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on summarising without retelling, aligned to Common Core standard RL.5.2. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 18 of them with 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 10 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.
Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 18 of these 25 sets ask different questions — this skill does not have 25 questions to give. The rest reorder them, so no two pupils have the same paper in front of them.
Summarise a Literary Text
RL.5.2
NameDate
Read the text, then answer the questions.
1.Read the text, then answer the questions.
What We Kept
Stanza one:
We kept the table, which was too big,
and the clock, which had never gone,
and a tin of buttons nobody wanted,
and the habit of turning lights off.
Stanza two:
We gave away the good chairs.
We gave away the china, all of it.
We gave away the piano to a school
because none of us could play.
Stanza three:
Ten years on, I would not know the chairs
if I saw them in a window on a street.
But I turn the hall light off behind me
every single time, and think of her.
1. Summarise this poem.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.
The Mill: Mr Whately's Account
I did not close the mill. The mill closed.
For eleven years I put my own money in. In 1979 I sold my house and moved into the office above the weaving floor, and nobody knew that but my accountant.
People say I should have told them earlier. I have thought about that more than they have. If I had said in January that we might not last the year, half the workforce would have left by February, and then we certainly would not have.
I held on until the day I could not pay them. Then I told them. I have been told this was cowardice. I would call it arithmetic.
1. Summarise this account.
LessonPrint · RL.5.2 · Set 10 · free to copy for classroom use
Answer key — Summarise a Literary Text
Set 10. Prints on its own sheet.
1.1. A family keeps some useless things and gives away the valuable ones, and ten years later only an inherited habit still connects the speaker to the dead.
2.1. Whately funded the mill privately for eleven years, sold his house in 1979, kept the danger quiet to stop staff leaving, and told them only when he could not pay.
Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.5.2 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.