Parts of Speech Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The answer is terribly cold: The weather has been terribly cold lately.

Terribly is an adverb of degree modifying the adjective cold, and an adverb ending in -ly is never joined to the adjective with a hyphen, so terribly-cold is wrong. Too cold implies a limit (too cold for something) that the sentence never names. Plain cold is grammatical, but the key treats the intensified form as the most appropriate fill, and it is the only option that is both correctly written and complete.

Answer: B

The correct pronoun is them.

The blank follows the preposition 'for', and a pronoun that is the object of a preposition must be in the objective case: them, not they. ('Expect' normally takes no 'for' in standard English, 'We are eagerly expecting them', but with the sentence as printed, the object form is required either way.)

'They' is the subjective case and cannot follow a preposition. 'These' and 'that' are demonstratives, and 'that' would also be singular where the sentence implies people being expected.

Answer: A

The pronoun is hers: it is not mine, it is hers.

The blank needs a possessive pronoun, one that stands alone without a noun after it, to match mine in the same sentence. Hers is such a pronoun.

Their is a possessive determiner and must be followed by a noun (the pronoun form would be theirs). John's is a possessive noun, not a pronoun, so it does not answer the question. Ours includes the speaker, which clashes with "it is not mine".

Answer: A

The adverb is consequently: He was late for the meeting, consequently he missed the initial proceedings.

The second clause states the result of the first: being late caused him to miss the start. Consequently means "as a result", so it links the cause with its effect, which is what the question means by an adverb of cause.

Gradually, slowly and abruptly are adverbs of manner: they describe how something happens, not why. Put in the blank they would not connect the two clauses and the sentence would make no sense.

Answer: C

The correct sentence is She found rare books to be her only source of happiness.

The word given in brackets is rare, an adjective. An adjective qualifies a noun and normally stands just before it, so the only place it can go is before books, giving rare books.

The other three options do not use the adjective at all: they turn it into the adverb rarely and attach it to the verb. That ignores the instruction and changes the meaning, from what kind of books she loved to how often she found happiness in books.

Answer: B

The relative pronoun is whom: That is the girl whom we met yesterday.

In the relative clause, we is the subject and the girl is the object of met. The object form of the relative pronoun for a person is whom, and that case form is what the question tests.

Who is the subject form, though it is common in informal speech. Which is used for things, not people. That would also be acceptable in everyday English in a defining clause like this, as would leaving the pronoun out, but the key takes whom, the form a grammar question about pronoun case expects.

Answer: B

The correct word is shining: We see the sun shining brightly in the morning.

After verbs of perception such as see, hear and watch, the object can be followed by an -ing participle to show an action in progress: we see the sun shining. Brightly describes the shining, so shining fits both the grammar and the sense.

Setting is grammatical but wrong in sense, since the sun sets in the evening, not the morning. Have shone and have shown are finite verb forms that cannot follow 'see the sun', and shown is the participle of show, not of shine.

Answer: D

The odd set is Please, Pleasing, Pleasing.

Each of the other sets gives the three degrees of comparison of an adjective: positive, comparative and superlative, as in big, bigger, biggest; thin, thinner, thinnest; great, greater, greatest.

Please is a verb, and pleasing is its participle or an adjective formed from it; the set repeats pleasing and has no comparative or superlative. It therefore does not follow the pattern of the other three.

Answer: A

In a water bird, the word water is an adjective.

A part of speech depends on the job a word does in the sentence. Here water stands before the noun bird and tells us what kind of bird it is, a bird that lives on or near water. A word that qualifies a noun in this way is used as an adjective (a noun used attributively).

In a glass of water, water would be a noun, and in water the plants it would be a verb. It is not an adverb, since it does not modify a verb, adjective or adverb.

Answer: C

In Our needs are few, the word needs is a noun.

Needs is the subject of the sentence. It follows the possessive our, which only comes before nouns, and it takes the plural verb are. It names the things we require, so it is a plural noun.

In He needs help, needs would be a verb. It is not a conjunction, which joins words or clauses, and not an interjection, which expresses sudden feeling, such as alas or oh.