Skip to content
LessonPrint

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 20 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

Next setLesson plan

One paper per pupil

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425

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.

Canals and Railways

Between 1760 and 1830 Britain built about four thousand miles of canal. Within forty years of that, most of it was losing money. A canal boat carried thirty tons behind one horse, where a cart carried two. That was transformative for coal and stone, which are heavy, cheap and not in a hurry. But a canal cannot climb without locks, cannot be built where there is no water, and freezes. A boat averaged three miles an hour. The railways did not beat canals on cost per ton at first. They beat them on speed, on reliability, and on where they could go — a railway can cross a watershed a canal cannot. Many canal companies were bought by railway companies, sometimes specifically in order to close them. By 1900 most of the network carried nothing. Some of it is now used more than it ever was, by people on holiday.

  1. 1. What speed did a canal boat average?
  2. 2. How much could one horse pull on a canal, compared with on a road?
  3. 3. How many miles of canal were built between 1760 and 1830?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Can You Do Two Things at Once?

People say they multitask. Mostly they do not. The brain can run two tasks together only if at least one is automatic. Walking and talking works because walking is automatic for an adult. Reading and listening to speech does not, because both need the same language system. What feels like multitasking is usually rapid switching. Each switch costs time — a fraction of a second to disengage and re-engage — and the costs add up. In experiments, people doing two tasks alternately take substantially longer in total than doing them one after the other, and make more errors. They also do not notice. Switching feels efficient because you are busy the whole time. The practical conclusion is unpopular but consistent: for anything demanding, doing one thing at a time is faster.

  1. 1. What does each switch cost?
  2. 2. When can the brain genuinely run two tasks together?
  3. 3. Summarise this text.

LessonPrint · SL.5.2 · Set 20 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Summarise What You Heard

Set 20. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Three miles an hour. 2. Thirty tons on the canal against two on a cart. 3. About four thousand.
  2. 2.1. A fraction of a second to disengage and re-engage. 2. Only if at least one of them is automatic. 3. Genuine multitasking needs one automatic task; what feels like it is rapid switching, which costs time and accuracy without feeling like it does.

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.

All Grade 5 worksheets

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