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Weighing the Evidence is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on judging how well a claim is supported, aligned to Common Core standard RI.5.8. 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 12 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Weighing the Evidence

RI.5.8

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.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. The text makes two claims. Identify which evidence supports which.
  2. 2. What is the author's purpose, and how do you know?
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. What is the author's purpose, and how do you know?
  2. 2. The text makes two claims about how each drink spread. Identify the evidence for each.

LessonPrint · RI.5.8 · Set 12 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Weighing the Evidence

Set 12. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. That the gauge was inherited — the colliery carts. That compatibility wins — the 1846 Act and the conversion of the whole Great Western. 2. To explain why a worse standard won — the final two lines state the general point.
  2. 2.1. To compare two histories rather than tell one — the structure alternates and the fourth paragraph draws the contrast. 2. Tea: the East India Company monopoly, the tax and the smuggling. Coffee: the coffee house, and the institutions founded in them.

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RI.5.8 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.