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Where the Last Part Changes It is a free printable Grade 5 English worksheet on explaining how an ending reframes what came before, aligned to Common Core standard RL.5.5. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions, 22 of them with 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 23 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. 22 of these 25 sets ask different questions — this skill does not have 25 questions to give. The rest reorder them, so no two pupils have the same paper in front of them.

Where the Last Part Changes It

RL.5.5

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Mill: Mr Whately's Account

I did not close the mill. The mill closed. For eleven years I put my own money in. In 1979 I sold my house and moved into the office above the weaving floor, and nobody knew that but my accountant. People say I should have told them earlier. I have thought about that more than they have. If I had said in January that we might not last the year, half the workforce would have left by February, and then we certainly would not have. I held on until the day I could not pay them. Then I told them. I have been told this was cowardice. I would call it arithmetic.

  1. 1. How does the opening line set up the whole account?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

What We Kept

Stanza one: We kept the table, which was too big, and the clock, which had never gone, and a tin of buttons nobody wanted, and the habit of turning lights off. Stanza two: We gave away the good chairs. We gave away the china, all of it. We gave away the piano to a school because none of us could play. Stanza three: Ten years on, I would not know the chairs if I saw them in a window on a street. But I turn the hall light off behind me every single time, and think of her.

  1. 1. Explain how the three stanzas fit together to make the poem's point.
  2. 2. How does the repetition in the second stanza work?

LessonPrint · RL.5.5 · Set 23 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Where the Last Part Changes It

Set 23. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. "I did not close the mill. The mill closed." refuses the charge before any of it is explained.
  2. 2.1. Kept things, given-away things, then ten years on — and what lasted was the one thing that could not be kept or given. 2. "We gave away" three times makes the disposal sound brisk and impersonal.

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to RL.5.5 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.