Language & Literature · Unit 14

Advanced Grammar

Clauses, tenses, voice and agreement

Advanced grammar is about the structures that let a sentence carry complexity without collapsing, and about the choices those structures make available.

The unit covers clauses and phrases, verb tenses, agreement, active and passive voice, and modifiers and parallelism.

This unit breaks down into 21 short steps and 128 questions, starting at difficulty 3 and building to 4. Below you can see exactly what it covers, how the path is structured, and worked examples with explanations.

Steps: 21
Questions: 128
Difficulty: 3-4

What this unit covers

Clauses and Phrases
Verb Tenses
Agreement
Active and Passive Voice
Modifiers and Parallelism

Where this fits

Needs Parts of Speech and Punctuation.

Where people slip

The passive voice is a tool, not an error. It is right whenever the actor is unknown or irrelevant, and the blanket advice to avoid it is bad advice.

How the unit is structured

Advanced Grammar runs as 21 short steps that unlock in order. 15 are practice rounds and 6 are challenge rounds that pull together everything before them. Questions start at difficulty 3 and climb to 4 as you progress.

Step 1 · easierStep 21 · harder

Challenge rounds

Example questions

30 real questions from this unit, with the answer and the reason behind it, grouped by what they practise. There are 128 in the unit altogether.

Active and Passive Voice

Build the sentenceLevel 3
1. Build the passive version of the sentence "The chef prepared the meal".
Answer: The meal was prepared by the chef
The object 'the meal' becomes the subject, and the doer follows the word 'by'.
Fill the blankLevel 3
2. The passive voice is built from a form of the verb "to be" plus the ____ participle.
- pastcorrect
- present
- perfect
- dangling
For example, "was eaten" joins "was" with the past participle "eaten".
Multiple choiceLevel 3
3. What is the active version of "The report was written by Ahmed"?
- Ahmed wrote the report.correct
- The report wrote Ahmed.
- Ahmed was writing by the report.
- The report has been written.
Making the agent the subject turns the passive sentence into the active 'Ahmed wrote the report'.
Choose all that applyLevel 4
4. Which are good reasons to choose the passive voice? Pick all that apply.
- The agent is unknown or unimportant.correct
- You want the focus on the receiver of the action.correct
- It always makes a sentence shorter.
- It always makes a sentence more precise.
The passive is useful when the doer is unknown or when the receiver deserves the focus.
Match the pairsLevel 4
5. Match each active sentence to its passive version.
Answer: The dog chased the cat = The cat was chased by the dog; They build houses = Houses are built; She will send the letter = The letter will be sent; Someone has stolen my bike = My bike has been stolen
Each passive keeps the same tense as the active sentence it came from.
Odd one outLevel 4
6. Which sentence is NOT in the passive voice?
- The committee approved the plan.correct
- The plan was approved by the committee.
- The results were announced yesterday.
- The bridge is being repaired.
"The committee approved the plan" has the doer as subject, so it is active.

Agreement

Choose all that applyLevel 3
7. Which of these subjects take a singular verb in standard English? Pick all that apply.
- everyonecorrect
- each of the boyscorrect
- the students
- many people
'Everyone' and 'each of the boys' are both grammatically singular subjects.
Fact or fibLevel 3
8. The sentence "There is many reasons to study grammar" shows correct subject-verb agreement.
Answer: False
False - the real subject is the plural "reasons", so it should be "There are many reasons".
Build the sentenceLevel 4
9. Build a sentence with correct subject-verb agreement (ignore punctuation).
Answer: One of the boxes was damaged in transit
The subject is "One", not "boxes", so the singular verb "was" is right.
Fill the blankLevel 4
10. Each of the students ____ a copy of the handbook.
- hascorrect
- have
- were having
- are having
"Each" is singular, so it takes the singular verb "has".
Multiple choiceLevel 4
11. Which sentence shows correct subject-verb agreement?
- The list of items is on the desk.correct
- The list of items are on the desk.
- The lists of items is on the desk.
- The list of item are on the desk.
The subject is "list", which is singular, so the verb is "is" even though "items" sits next to it.
Sort into groupsLevel 4
12. Sort each subject by whether it takes a singular or a plural verb in standard English.
Answer: Everybody = Singular verb; Each boy = Singular verb; The children = Plural verb; Both dogs = Plural verb
Indefinite pronouns such as "everybody" and determiners such as "each" are singular, while "both" and plural nouns are plural.

Clauses and Phrases

Build the sentenceLevel 3
13. Build a complex sentence that opens with a subordinate clause.
Answer: Because the storm was loud we stayed inside
'Because the storm was loud' is the subordinate clause and 'we stayed inside' is the main clause.
Fill the blankLevel 3
14. A group of related words that lacks a subject-verb pair is called a ____.
- phrasecorrect
- clause
- sentence
- predicate
A phrase works as one unit of meaning but has no subject doing a verb.
Match the pairsLevel 3
15. Match each kind of subordinate clause to the job it does in a sentence.
Answer: Adjective clause = Describes a noun; Adverb clause = Tells when, where or why; Noun clause = Acts as a subject or an object
Subordinate clauses are named after the part of speech whose work they do.
Multiple choiceLevel 3
16. Which of these is an independent clause?
- The rain stopped suddenly.correct
- After the rain stopped
- In the middle of the storm
- Because of the heavy rain
An independent clause has a subject and a verb and makes complete sense on its own.
Choose all that applyLevel 4
17. Which of these word groups are dependent clauses? Pick all that apply.
- because the road was closedcorrect
- although she tried her bestcorrect
- early in the morning
- the train arrived late
A dependent clause has a subject and verb but begins with a subordinator, so it cannot stand alone.
Odd one outLevel 4
18. Which word is NOT a subordinating conjunction?
- howevercorrect
- although
- because
- unless
"However" is a conjunctive adverb, not a subordinating conjunction, so it cannot open a subordinate clause.

Modifiers and Parallelism

Build the sentenceLevel 3
19. Build a sentence in which the adverb 'quietly' clearly describes the verb 'closed'.
Answer: The librarian quietly closed the door
Placing 'quietly' right before 'closed' leaves no doubt about which word it modifies.
Fill the blankLevel 3
20. A modifier that sits too far from the word it describes is called a ____ modifier.
- misplacedcorrect
- dangling
- restrictive
- comparative
A misplaced modifier is in the wrong spot, so it seems to describe the wrong word.
Choose all that applyLevel 4
21. Which sentences are parallel in structure? Pick all that apply.
- She likes swimming, cycling and running.
- He came, he saw, he conquered.
- I enjoy reading, to write and jogging.
- The job requires patience, skill and to be punctual.
Parallel sentences repeat one grammatical pattern; mixing -ing forms with infinitives breaks it.
Fact or fibLevel 4
22. "Only I ate the cake" and "I only ate the cake" mean exactly the same thing.
Answer: False
False: moving "only" shifts the meaning from who ate it to what was done with it.
Guess the numberLevel 4
23. How many adjectives modify the noun in the phrase "a lovely large old brown wooden table"?
Answer: 5 adjectives
Lovely, large, old, brown and wooden are five adjectives stacked before "table".
Match the pairsLevel 4
24. Match each faulty sentence to the problem it shows.
Answer: Walking home, the streetlights came on = Dangling modifier; She almost drove her kids to school every day = Misplaced modifier; He likes hiking, biking and to swim = Faulty parallelism
Each sentence fails in a different way: an unattached opener, a modifier in the wrong slot, or a broken list pattern.

Verb Tenses

Fact or fibLevel 3
25. The sentence "He plays tennis every Saturday" is in the present simple tense.
Answer: True
True - the present simple is used for repeated habits.
Match the pairsLevel 3
26. Match each sentence to the tense it uses.
Answer: She writes every morning. = Present simple; She is writing now. = Present continuous; She wrote yesterday. = Past simple; She has written three novels. = Present perfect
The helping verb and the verb ending together show which tense a sentence is in.
Build the sentenceLevel 4
27. Build a present perfect continuous sentence about someone waiting for an hour.
Answer: She has been waiting for an hour
The present perfect continuous is "has been" plus the -ing form, showing an action still going on.
Choose all that applyLevel 4
28. Which sentences use the past perfect correctly? Pick all that apply.
- She had left before we arrived.correct
- They had finished the work by noon.correct
- He had went home early.
- I had saw the film twice.
The past perfect is "had" plus the past participle, not the past simple form.
Fill the blankLevel 4
29. By next June, Maria ____ studied Latin for three years.
- will havecorrect
- has
- had
- will be
"Will have" plus the past participle makes the future perfect needed by "by next June".
Guess the numberLevel 4
30. Counting simple, continuous, perfect and perfect continuous forms in the past, present and future, how many tenses do most English coursebooks list?
Answer: 12 tenses
Three times (past, present, future) multiplied by four aspects gives the familiar list of twelve tenses.

Where these questions come from. Each unit starts as a plan of the concepts it should cover and the difficulty it should span. Questions are written against that plan with AI assistance, then checked by a validator that rejects anything without a single defensible answer, an explanation, or plausible wrong options. How we write questions sets out the whole process, and corrections are fixed in the bank and reach the site and the app the same day.

How you practise

This unit mixes 14 different question formats, so you are recalling and applying rather than recognising the same layout every time.

Build the sentence
Choose all that apply
Fact or fib
Fill the blank
Guess the number
Match the pairs
Multiple choice
Odd one out
Picture question
Put in order
Sort into groups
Spell it
True or false
Type the answer

Practise Advanced Grammar

128 questions across 21 steps. Start with step one and crawl at your own pace.

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