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Summarise an Argued Text is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on summarising a text that makes several claims, aligned to Common Core standard RI.5.2. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 21 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 8 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 21 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 an Argued Text

RI.5.2

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. Summarise this text.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Why the Thames Froze

Between 1309 and 1814 the Thames froze hard enough to walk on at least twenty-four times. Since 1814 it has not once. The usual explanation is that the climate has warmed. That is part of it, and not most of it. Old London Bridge had nineteen arches on wide stone piers. The piers took up so much of the channel that the bridge acted as a weir, slowing the water upstream almost to a standstill. Still water freezes; moving water does not. The river was also shallower and wider then, spreading over land that has since been embanked. Shallow water loses heat faster. Old London Bridge was demolished in 1831. The embankments were built between 1862 and 1874. The river that flows through London now is narrower, deeper and faster than the one that froze — and it would not freeze in a colder winter than any of those.

  1. 1. Summarise this text.

LessonPrint · RI.5.2 · Set 8 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Summarise an Argued Text

Set 8. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Tea reached Britain through a taxed monopoly that produced mass smuggling; coffee spread through coffee houses that became institutions — and neither plant grows here.
  2. 2.1. The Thames froze two dozen times before 1814 because Old London Bridge dammed it and the river was shallow and wide; demolition and embankment made it too fast and deep to freeze.

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RI.5.2 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.