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📖 The Message in the Bottle

5th Grade reading comprehension · Story · Read the passage, then circle the best answer.

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When Priya found a glass bottle wedged between two rocks on the beach, she almost walked past it. Then she noticed a rolled-up paper inside.

The note was written in careful handwriting and dated twelve years earlier: “Hello from a fifth grader in Nova Scotia! If you find this, please write back and tell me where it landed.” An address was printed at the bottom.

Priya’s teacher helped her look at ocean current maps. They traced how the bottle might have drifted across the Atlantic, carried by the Gulf Stream, before washing up on the coast of Ireland.

Priya wrote a long letter. Three weeks later, a reply arrived from a woman named Claire, now a marine biologist. “That bottle,” Claire wrote, “is the reason I fell in love with the ocean.”

Words to know: wedged: stuck tightly in a narrow space · current: a steady flow of water in one direction

  1. How old was the note when Priya found it?
    1. Twelve years
    2. Twenty years
    3. Two years
  2. What helped carry the bottle across the ocean?
    1. The Gulf Stream current
    2. A storm only
    3. A ship
  3. What can you infer about Claire’s career choice?
    1. The bottle project sparked her love of the sea.
    2. She disliked the ocean.
    3. It had nothing to do with the bottle.
  4. Which theme fits the story best?
    1. Small actions can have lasting effects.
    2. Letters are always lost.
    3. Never go to the beach.
✂ Answer key: fold or cut along the line

1. A (detail)   2. A (detail)   3. A (inference)   4. A (main idea)

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