Questions Tags:
Questions are mostly used for getting ideas about something. What is your name? Who are you? Are you a student? But tag questions are used for confirmation about something. They are the short questions that are used at the end of a statement. Tag questions are working inversely. Like
“The man is tall”. Is it not he? Over here the statement is positive but the tag is negative. And if the statement is negative then the tag will be positive. “The man is not tall.” Is he?
The formation of question tags.
Helping verb (auxiliary verb) + not + subject +?
Whenever the statement is positive the tag will be in negative thought there are some other cases where we can use a positive statement plus a positive tag. Which will be studied below. These are examples of positive tag questions.
| S# | Positive Statement + | Negative Tag |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The man is tall. | Isn’t he? |
| 2 | The king is rude. | Isn’t he? |
| 3 | He was intelligent. | Was he? |
| 4 | They have a beautiful car. | Doesn’t she? |
| 5 | She wants a paper. | Don’t they? |
| 6 | You are ill. | Aren’t I? |
| 7 | I am a doctor. | Aren’t we? |
| 8 | John and Kim have a test today. | Isn’t it? |
| 9 | We are going to picnic now. | Isn’t it? |
| 10 | It is fast. | Is not it? |
Negative statement:
Tense: Learn the tense to improve more.
Helping verb (auxiliary verb) + subject +?
In a negative statement, we add a positive tag question. Through which we can confirm the idea.
| S# | Negative Statement | Negative Tag |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The man is not tall. | Is he? |
| 2 | The king is not rude> | Is he? |
| 3 | I am not intelligent. | Am I? |
| 4 | They do have not a car. | Have they? |
| 5 | She does not want a paper. | Does she? |
| 6 | We did not play football. | Did we? |
| 7 | He had not plugged the wire. | Had he? |
| 8 | You are not listening to the music. | Are you? |
| 11 | John and Kamran did not swim in the park. | Did they? |
| 12 | All the members kept quiet. | Did they? |
| 13 | I will play piano. | Won’t I? |
- won’t is the contracted form of will not
The answer to Tag Questions:
Tag questions are answered differently. Depends upon the statement and purpose of the statement. Mostly we answer with yes/no. but in some cases, we repeat the same tag questions. Most students get confused while answering the tag questions. But do not worry over here we get it.
| S# | Statement | Tag Questions | Answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The wall is white. | Is it not he? | Yes, it is. |
| 2 | The wall is not white. | Is it? | No, it is. |
| 3 | He is a man. | Doesn’t he? | Yes, he is. |
| 4 | The boy climbs the wall. | Isn’t it? | Yes, he does. |
| 5 | We are human beings. | Isn’t it? | Yes, we are. |
| 6 | The cat is a human. | Doesn’t it? | No, it is not. |
| 7 | The fire burns. | Isn’t it? | Yes, it does. |
| 8 | The fire cannot burn wire. | Can It? | Yes, it can. |
| 9 | The cow can talk. | Cannot it? | No, it cannot. |
| 10 | The roof of the home is high. | Is not it? | No, it is not. |
In some cases, if we agree or disagree with the idea of someone we can answer with both yes and no. there won’t be a specific rule.
Like: The ashes are not hot. Is it? Yes, it is not. Over here we agreed with the idea of the speaker so we answered with yes, but we can disagree also. No, it is hot.
How to make tag questions of Imperatives sentences.
Imperative sentences that contain orders, requests, invitations, or permission, can be also used in tag questions. We follow the same rule as above if the sentence does not have a helping verb we use it according to the tense. Like open your books. Don’t you? Or open your books, won’t you? But if the sentence is requested or help we mostly use can / can’t will or would.
| S# | Imperative Sentences | Tag Questions |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stand up. | Won’t you? |
| 2 | Clean the whiteboard. | Do not you? |
| 3 | Clean the room. Please! | Cannot you? |
| 4 | Close the door. | Would you? |
| 5 | Close the door. | Won’t you? |
| 6 | Pass me the salt. | Will you? |
| 7 | I want to go out. | Cannot I? |
| 8 | I do not want to go out. | Do I? |
Special note: Negative adverbs
Some adverbs which give a negative sense in the sentence, do not need any negative words like not. We make a tag of them in positive. Like: never, rarely, seldom, and hardly. They are the adverbs that do not need the word not. They give a negative sense. So the tag questions mostly will be positive.
| S# | Statement with Adverbs | Tag Questions |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | They rarely go for praying. | Do they? |
| 2 | She never speaks politely. | Does she? |
| 3 | I seldom speak on the calls. | Do I? |
| 4 | He can hardly give $ 100. | Can he? |
| 5 | We never spend uselessly. | Do we? |
Exercise of Tag Questions
- The machine will work. Won’t it?
- The machine will not work. Will it? She never comes on time to class, do you?
- Nobody knows, do they?
- You won’t be late, will you?
- The doctor couldn’t help him, could he?
- The patient rarely comes to the doctor. Does he?
- We’d never have known, would we?
- The home is destroyed. Isn’t it?
- She is intelligent. Isn’t she?
- The cat can jump on the wall. Cannot it?
- Shut up, will you!
- Nothing will happen to them, will it?
- They never spend the paper. Do they?
Related Grammars:
Simple past tense, Present indefinite tense, active and passive voice.
Do you need Imperative question tag exercises with answers? comment me in the comment section.