Following on from the quick exercises for negative simple statements, this exercise will test understanding of negative simple question forms. Negative simple questions are formed by placing do, did or will before the subject and not after the subject, or by forming a negative contraction, don’t, didn’t, won’t before the subject. If we’re asking a question of the person who made the statement, any first person statements should be changed to second person (i.e. I -> you, we -> they). The following exercise has 15 negative statements in mixed tenses that can be converted to negative questions. The answers are given below the exercise.
Negative Simple Questions Exercise (Mixed Tenses)
Convert the following negative statements into negative questions using the appropriate tense.
- Robert does not eat meat.
- The investigator didn’t understand the reports.
- Many people won’t give us money for our charity.
- She won’t visit her mother again.
- We do not like bagpipes.
- Harry will not be in school tomorrow.
- Our friends did not meet until college.
- I don’t understand these questions.
- Running from your problems will not help you.
- You didn’t feed the ducks again.
- He does not practice guitar very often.
- The council did not remove our rubbish this week.
- They will not be able to find anywhere to park the car.
- Simon didn’t qualify for a new license.
- That doesn’t look right.
Answers
- Does Robert not eat meat?
- Didn’t the investigator understand the reports?
- Won’t many people give you money for your charity?
- Won’t she visit her mother again?
- Do you not like bagpipes?
- Will Harry not be in school tomorrow?
- Did our friends not meet until college?
- Don’t you understand these questions?
- Will running from your problems not help you?
- Didn’t you feed the ducks again?
- Does he not practice guitar very often?
- Did the council not remove our rubbish this week?
- Will they not be able to find anywhere to park the car?
- Didn’t Simon qualify for a new license?
- Doesn’t that look right?
Hi ,
According to dictionary we use plural verb with word ” couple” when they are getting married and singular when they are already established couple ( married). According to this rule I choose this sentence in my exam.
The Japanese couple on the back of the couch was obviously newly -weds.
But when I checked my result my sentence was marked incorrect .and the below mentioned sentence was considered correct :
The Japanese couple at the back of the coach were obviously newly -weds .
Aslo as you know mostly we use singular verb with the collective noun. Please help me to clear this confusion.
Hi Sana,
That’s an interesting point; I’d start by saying that seems like an unusual rule for the dictionary to establish and I doubt many native English speakers would use different grammar depending on whether a couple is married or unmarried. “Couple” is a word that most people would agree should, grammatically, be treated as singular, but it’s also one of those where people can be quite flexible in practice, so “rules” like that which attempt to explain it aren’t really very helpful…
But your example sentence is a specifically interesting one because the confusion really stems from combining a singular group noun, “couple”, with a qualifying plural, “newlyweds”. This makes both singular and plural sound correct or incorrect depending on how you want to look at it! I’d argue that because we have “newlyweds” we really need a plural verb, as it must refer to more than one person (we couldn’t say the “couple was newlywed”; you could say “the couple was newly wed” but that carries a different meaning!), but we wouldn’t expect to see a plural with “couple” typically, so it might be best just to reword the sentence.
Now that I’ve come this far to be honest this might be another interesting one for an article, because it could rather get into issues about how important it is to be “correct” in this situation! But in the meantime I do have a few more plural articles that might help with such considerations: https://englishlessonsbrighton.co.uk/?s=plural
Phil