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Summarise What You Heard is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on summarising a text or presentation accurately, aligned to Common Core standard SL.5.2. 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 11 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.

Summarise What You Heard

SL.5.2

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

What Sleep Is For

Sleep is not switching off. Parts of the brain are busier asleep than awake. Two claims are well supported. The first is that sleep consolidates memory: during deep sleep, the day's experiences are replayed and moved from short-term storage into long-term. Interrupt deep sleep and recall of the previous day drops measurably. The second is that sleep clears waste. The spaces between brain cells widen during sleep, and fluid washes through, removing proteins that build up while awake. A third claim — that a particular number of hours suits everybody — is not supported. Need varies with age and between individuals, and self-reported sleep is unreliable. Teenagers are a special case. Their body clocks genuinely shift later at puberty, which is a biological fact rather than a preference, and school start times mostly ignore it.

  1. 1. What happens to the spaces between brain cells during sleep?
  2. 2. What happens to recall when deep sleep is interrupted?
  3. 3. Summarise this text.
2.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. Who controlled the tea trade?
  2. 2. Determine two main ideas of this text and explain how details support each.
  3. 3. What happened when the tea tax was cut in 1784?

LessonPrint · SL.5.2 · Set 11 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Summarise What You Heard

Set 11. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. They widen, and fluid washes through. 2. It drops measurably. 3. Sleep consolidates memory and clears waste from the brain, no single number of hours suits everybody, and teenagers' body clocks genuinely shift later.
  2. 2.1. The East India Company. 2. First, the two drinks spread by different mechanisms — supported by the monopoly and the coffee house. Second, both are imported habits now thought native — supported by the last paragraph. 3. Smuggling collapsed almost overnight.

More practice for SL.5.2

Summarise a text or presentation you heard or watched.

Teaching this next? Summarising a Text Read Aloud is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

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