A 5th grade reading passage follows Maya and her brother Leo as they make a salad, lemonade and a cake. It separates mixtures, solutions and baking, and prints the words mixture, dissolving and solution in bold. Six comprehension questions follow, four multiple choice and two written. The answer key is on page 4. It supports NGSS 5-PS1-4 and Common Core RI.5.1.
5-PS1-4
“Conduct an investigation to determine whether the mixing of two or more substances results in new substances.”
The passage compares three kitchen changes, and questions 4 and 6 ask which one makes a new substance.
RI.5.1
“Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.”
Questions 5 and 6 ask students to use evidence from the text.
Four paragraphs beside a photo of lemonade, a salad and a cake. Leo's salad is a mixture, Maya's lemonade is a solution, and the baked cake is a new substance.
Four questions with four options each: which food can be sorted by hand, what happens to the sugar in the lemon water, which word means the same as vanish, and how we know baking makes a new substance.
Question 5 asks for two ways the text shows that the sugar is still in the lemonade. Question 6 asks why baking a cake differs from tossing a salad and stirring sugar into water.
Letters for questions 1 to 4 and model answers for 5 and 6, including taste and evaporation as the two pieces of evidence.
Mark the key words
Have students underline the three bold words before they answer anything. Questions 2 and 4 come straight from those sentences.
Stop at the cake
Pause before the last paragraph and ask for predictions. The cake is where students first meet a change that cannot be undone.
Question 6 as a paragraph
Turn question 6 into a short paragraph. Ask for the words mixture, solution and new substance, each used once.
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