11 plus Sentence Grammar questions

What a Sentence Grammar question looks like

Sentence Grammar sits in the grammar and punctuation part of 11 plus English, and it is the one type in that group where nothing in the sentence is wrong. Its neighbours hand a child a sentence with a mistake to find or a gap to fill. Here the sentence is complete and correct, and the question asks them to name a part of it or to count how many of something it holds.

Two shapes cover the whole set. In the first, a sentence is quoted and the question is “Which word in this sentence is the subject?”, with the same wording used for the object, the verb and the conjunction. Five single words lifted from the sentence are offered as options. In the second, the question is “How many adjectives are in this sentence?”, asked the same way for nouns and for adverbs, and the options are numbers.

The sentences themselves are short and ordinary. The difficulty is in where the trap sits: usually a word that would belong to the right group in a different sentence, or a word in the right group doing a job the question is not asking about.

Example one: which word is the subject

“Over the gate jumped the grey horse.” The options are horse, gate, jumped, grey and over.

The subject is who or what does the action, so find the action first. Something jumped. Now ask who or what did the jumping. The horse did.

The answer is horse.

Gate is the tempting option, for a reason that comes up all through this type: it is the first noun, and children learn early that the subject sits near the start. But gate belongs to the opening phrase “over the gate”, which only tells you where the jumping happened. Turn the sentence back into its ordinary order, “the grey horse jumped over the gate”, and there is nothing left to fall for.

Example two: how many adjectives

“The bright sun shone brightly on the sandy beach.” The options are 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Go along the sentence one word at a time and ask the same question of each: does this word describe a thing? Bright describes the sun, so that is one. Sandy describes the beach, so that is two. Nothing else does.

The answer is 2.

Brightly is the trap, sitting three words from bright and looking almost identical. It does not describe the sun. It describes how the sun shone, which makes it an adverb. The two uses of “the” are not counted either: they point at a thing rather than describing it. The -ly ending is a clue and not a rule, though: friendly and lonely both end in -ly and both describe a thing, so both are adjectives.

Example three: which word is the conjunction

“Despite her nerves, Priya performed well although she had never sung in public before.” The options are despite, before, in, although and never.

A conjunction joins two parts of a sentence that could each stand alone. Test the options by looking at what sits on either side. Either side of although you have “Priya performed well” and “she had never sung in public before”, and each works as a sentence on its own.

The answer is although.

Despite is a good trap, because it really does show a contrast, exactly as although does. The difference is what comes after it. Despite is followed by “her nerves”, which names something rather than saying something about it, so no second sentence has been joined on. Words like despite, in and before point at a thing rather than joining two halves of a sentence.

How to answer it

1. Read the whole sentence before you look at the options. Every option is a word taken from that sentence, so reading the list first makes several words look important that are not.
2. If the sentence opens with a phrase saying where or when, set it aside. “Over the gate”, “After the heavy storm” and “At the end of the show” are scene setting, and the subject is almost never inside one.
3. For a “which word” question, find the action first and work outwards. Who or what did it? That is the subject. What was it done to? That is the object. A thing named after in, on, to, for, of or through is not the object.
4. For a “how many” question, go word by word from the beginning rather than hunting for the words you expect. Ask of each: does it name a thing, describe a thing, or tell you how, when or where something happened?
5. Check the options you rejected before you commit. Four of the five are wrong on purpose, and one is usually wrong for a reason worth noticing.

Common mistakes

• Taking the first noun as the subject. The commonest slip, and many of these sentences are built to punish it. In “Behind the old bookcase, Maya discovered a hidden door”, bookcase comes first but Maya is the one doing something.
• Trusting the -ly ending. Brightly, quickly and quietly are adverbs, but friendly is an adjective, and hard, outside and underground are all adverbs with no -ly at all.
• Counting the little words. “The”, “a”, “my” and “his” are never counted as adjectives or nouns here, and pronouns such as she and us are not nouns either.
• Taking the thing after a preposition as the object. In “Sara kicked the football into the net”, football is the object and net is not, because net follows “into”. The same trap uses “to”, “of” and “for”.
• Assuming a word belongs to one group for ever. Swimming, excited, decorated and frozen all do describing work rather than action work in these sentences, and light describes the rain in “light rain” while naming a thing almost everywhere else.

How to practise 11 plus Sentence Grammar questions

The habit worth building is going word by word instead of scanning, and little and often builds it faster than a long weekend session, which is the pattern we set out in how much 11 plus practice a child needs each day. When your child gets one wrong, do not start with the right answer. Ask them what the sentence means in their own words, then ask who or what is doing something in it. Most of the time they correct themselves, and the reasoning carries over to the rest of eleven plus English. 11+ Daily has a Sentence Grammar project alongside the other English skills, on laptop, tablet or phone, and the full list is on our 11 plus English practice page. Every question is original to 11+ Daily, nothing is a past paper and nothing is licensed from another publisher, and the bank is re-checked in rounds.

Questions parents ask