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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 3 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.

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 vacation.

  1. 1. Summarize this text.
  2. 2. Determine two main ideas of this text and explain how details support each.
  3. 3. What speed did a canal boat average?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Why the Thames Froze

Between 1309 and 1814 the Thames froze hard enough to walk on more than twenty 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. When was Old London Bridge demolished?
  2. 2. Determine two main ideas of this text and explain how details support each.
  3. 3. Summarize this text.

LessonPrint · SL.5.2 · Set 3 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Summarize What You Heard

Set 3. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Canals moved heavy goods fifteen times more efficiently than carts, but locks, water and three miles an hour lost to railways, and the network now carries holidaymakers. 2. First, canals were transformative for heavy goods — supported by the thirty tons. Second, they lost to railways on flexibility, not price — supported by the watershed and the speed. 3. Three miles an hour.
  2. 2.1. 1831. 2. First, the bridge acted as a weir and slowed the water — supported by the nineteen arches. Second, the river's shape mattered — supported by the shallower, wider channel and the embankments. 3. The Thames froze more than twenty 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.

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.