In “Swimming is good exercise”, what is “swimming”?

a main verb in the present tense

a present participle, acting as an adjective

Parts of speech and sentence roles quiz

This quiz is for primary and secondary pupils learning to take a sentence apart, and for adults who want to brush up on grammar terms. A part of speech tells you what kind of word it is, as a dictionary would; its role tells you the job it does in a particular sentence.

The first questions use short, everyday sentences; later ones deal with objects, complements and words that change category depending on where they sit. Tip: to find a word’s role, ask the verb a question (who did it? did what? to whom?) and try swapping the phrase for a pronoun.

Parts of speech and sentence roles quiz

1. In “The dog barked”, what part of speech is “dog”? *

2. What is the subject of “After lunch, the children played football”? *

3. In “a very old house”, what part of speech is “very”? *

4. In “She kicked the ball”, what role does “the ball” play? *

5. In “He gave his sister a book”, what role does “his sister” play? *

6. In “My brother seems tired”, what role does “tired” play? *

7. In “I stayed home because it was raining”, what part of speech is “because”? *

8. Which word is a preposition in “The cat slept under the table”? *

9. In “Their house is big”, what part of speech is “their”? *

10. In “Swimming is good exercise”, what is “swimming”? *