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Summarize What You Heard is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on summarizing 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 students in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 16 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.

Summarize 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 jobs were lost?
  2. 2. How many other mills within twenty miles had closed since 1975?
  3. 3. Summarize this report.
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Why the Rails Are That Far Apart

Standard gauge is 4 feet 8½ inches. It is a strange number, and the reason is historical rather than engineering. Early railways were built by people who had built tramways for collieries, and those had used the wheel spacing of the carts already in use. Nobody chose it; it was inherited. Isambard Kingdom Brunel did choose. He built the Great Western at 7 feet ¼ inch, and by most measures it was better: faster, steadier, and able to carry more. He lost anyway. By the 1840s, more of the network was already standard gauge, and a train cannot run on a track it does not fit. Parliament settled it in 1846. Between 1846 and 1892 the Great Western converted its entire route. The final conversion took a single weekend and about four thousand men. The best design does not always win. The one that connects to everything else does.

  1. 1. How long did the final conversion take?
  2. 2. What is standard gauge?
  3. 3. Summarize this text.

LessonPrint · SL.5.2 · Set 16 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Summarize What You Heard

Set 16. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. 214. 2. Four. 3. Whately's Mill closed with 214 jobs lost after 112 years, the union called it predictable, the Chamber wants an inquiry, and four nearby mills had already gone.
  2. 2.1. A single weekend, with about four thousand men. 2. 4 feet 8½ inches. 3. Standard gauge was inherited from colliery carts, Brunel's wider gauge was better but incompatible, and the Great Western converted its whole route by 1892.

More practice for SL.5.2

Summarize a text or presentation you heard or watched.

Teaching this next? Summarizing 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.