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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 6 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.

The Mill: The Local Paper, June 1980

Whately's Mill closed on Friday with the loss of 214 jobs, the largest single closure in the town since the war. The mill had run since 1868. At its height it employed more than 600. Mr Whately declined to say when he had known the closure was certain. The Chamber of Commerce has called for a public inquiry; the union has called the closure "predictable for two years". The council says a retraining fund will open in September. Four other textile mills within twenty miles have closed since 1975. Nobody the paper spoke to expected the site to be used for textiles again.

  1. 1. How many other mills within twenty miles had closed since 1975?
  2. 2. How many jobs were lost?
  3. 3. Determine two main ideas of this report and explain how details support each.
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. Which two institutions began in a coffee house?
  2. 2. Summarise this text.
  3. 3. Determine two main ideas of this text and explain how details support each.

LessonPrint · SL.5.2 · Set 6 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Summarise What You Heard

Set 6. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Four. 2. 214. 3. First, this was the town's largest closure since the war — supported by the 214 jobs. Second, it was part of a regional decline — supported by the four other mills since 1975.
  2. 2.1. Lloyd's of London and the London Stock Exchange. 2. Tea reached Britain through a taxed monopoly that produced mass smuggling; coffee spread through coffee houses that became institutions — and neither plant grows here. 3. 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.

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.