Before doing this activity you may need to read the text you will find at the end
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| Gapped text | |
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| Come here, ________________? | |
| I think I am your teacher, ________________? | |
| Well, I think I'm wrong, ________________? | |
| You've got three sisters, ______________________? | |
| She's not talking to Peter, ____________? | |
| You never listen, ____________? | |
| You probably should call her, __________________________? | |
| David has never been to Salamanca, ____________? | |
| Doctor, I'm very ill, ________________? | |
| Let's go and help him, ________________? | |
| I'm not doing it correctly, ________? | |
| The doctor hasn't arrived yet, ____________? | |
| Let's go to the cinema tonight, ________________? | |
| Shut up, ________________? | |
| When you go to the shop remember to get some sugar too. Don't forget, ________________? | |
| There's a house on that hill, ______________________? | |
| Ronny lives near the sea, ____________________? | |
| I am out of the game, ________________? | |
| I think you'd like to buy this one, ________________________? | |
| There was a man at the party in a red jacket, ________________________? | |
| Have another cup of tea, ________________? I know you like it. | |
| Mike must look after her little sister, ____________________? | |
| I'm not participating in that meeting, ________? | |
| I've never been in your house, ____________? | |
| Do me a favour, ________________? Give this parcel to your sister. | |
| Let's stay at home and watch TV, ________________? | |
| Close that window, ________________? | |
| We can stay here for a while, ________________? | |
| He'll come here first, ________________? | |
| Please, come for dinner tonight, ________________? I'd love to talk to you. |
GENERAL RULE
❶ Question tags always use a special verb
❷ The subject is always a pronoun, and it is inverted (because it is a question, of course)
❸ Affirmative sentences add a negative question tag and negative sentences add an affirmative question tag
SPECIAL CASES
I AM
The negative question tag "am I not" has no contraction. Because a question tag with no contraction sounds very pedantic, we prefer a very ungrammatical constraction but which is correct for question tags: "aren't I?"
- I'm late, aren't I?
- I'm talking to the walls, aren't I?
SUGGESTIONS
After a sentence with Let's... we use "shall we?"
- Let's go out for a walk, shall we?
- Let's study tomorrow morning, shall we?
IMPERATIVES & INVITATIONS
After an imperative we use "will you?" (always affirmative). We can consider "will you?" as an equivalent to "please" (more or less)
- Open the door, will you?
- Don't smoke in this room, will you?
- Come to my party, will you?
- Have a coffee, will you?
- Don't look at me like that, will you?
If there are two verbs in the sentence, the question tag may refer to one or the other, you must use your common sense here:
- I think you're John, aren't you? (= are you John?)
- I think you're John, don't I (= do I think...?) [this would be correct but very rare]