Gerund Participle Infinitive Quiz: Check Your Grammar Skills
This quiz helps you choose between gerunds, participles, and infinitives in real sentences. Get instant feedback, fix common mix-ups, and build confidence for class or tests. Need more practice? Try gerunds and infinitives practice and past participle practice, or check your basics with a parts of speech quiz.
Study Outcomes
- Identify Gerunds -
Spot gerunds functioning as nouns in diverse sentences, strengthening your skills in verbals practice.
- Distinguish Participles -
Differentiate between present and past participles used as adjectives, boosting your clarity in gerunds participles and infinitives usage.
- Recognize Infinitives -
Recognize infinitives serving as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs, expanding your knowledge of infinitive verbals.
- Differentiate Verbals -
Analyze quiz items to determine whether each verbal is a gerund, participle, or infinitive, mastering gerund participle or infinitive distinctions.
- Apply Correct Verbals -
Choose the appropriate gerund, participle, or infinitive in sentence completions, enhancing accuracy in a verbals practice test setting.
- Enhance Grammar Skills -
Build confidence in your writing by applying correct verbals and reducing errors in gerunds participles and infinitives.
Cheat Sheet
- Identifying gerunds, participles, and infinitives -
In verbals practice, a gerund ends in - ing and acts as a noun, a participle ends in - ing or - ed and modifies a noun, while an infinitive appears as "to + verb" serving noun, adjective, or adverb roles. A quick tip from Purdue OWL: ask "what?" or "who?" to spot gerunds, "which one?" for participles, and "why?" or "to what end?" for infinitives. Mastering these patterns is foundational for gerunds participles and infinitives quizzes.
- Gerunds as subjects and objects -
Gerunds function seamlessly as subjects (Swimming is fun) or objects (I enjoy reading) in sentences, just like nouns. To remember, use the mnemonic "G.S.O." (Gerunds Serve as Objects/Subjects) inspired by Cambridge University guidance. Practicing gerund participle or infinitive identification helps cement this role in your writing.
- Participles in adjective roles -
Present participles (e.g., running water) and past participles (e.g., broken glass) both describe nouns and can start clauses that add vital details. According to University of Oxford resources, dangling participles often cause confusion, so always match the participle to the correct subject. Regular verbals practice test exercises will sharpen your participle-spotting skills.
- Infinitives for purpose, result, and beyond -
Infinitives (to + verb) frequently express purpose ("He paused to think") but can also act as nouns ("To travel is my dream") or adjectives/adverbs. The mnemonic "To Do Anything" reminds you of this versatility, supported by examples from the OWL at Purdue. Incorporating infinitives into your verbals practice ensures you can harness their full potential.
- Avoiding common verbals pitfalls -
Watch out for verbs that change meaning with a gerund vs. an infinitive (e.g., "remember doing" vs. "remember to do"), as highlighted by the British Council. Preposition + gerund combos (look forward to meeting) often trip writers up - infinitives don't follow prepositions. Regular verbals practice keeps these tricky patterns top of mind and boosts confidence.