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Asking Questions
“To be or not to be…that is the question”
Scenario 1: Yes or No
Look at the following:
1. Have you done your homework?
2. Is your father back home?
3. Have they finished their work?
4. Are you Sohan’s brother?
5. Have you not been trying to impress the coach for so long?
6. Hasn’t he ever tried dominate you?
7. Are you willing to patiently listen to others without over-reacting?
8. Is it such a difficult problem that we need to involve the entire committee?
The sentences above are questions which are answered in Yes/No, Right/Wrong, True/False etc.
There is a close association between the statements which can constitute the answers to these
questions and the questions themselves. Fill up the following blanks and see for yourself:
Sl No Question Answer
1
Have you had your lunch?
2
My work is finished.
3
Did she tell him who she was?
4
Razia has told Shyam that it was Raghav who
broke the window
5
They have been demanding a re-examination
6
The bus driver broke the traffic rules
7
Was he a boxing champion in college?
8
Will you ever learn to be serious?
9
They have found out the solution to this
complicated problem
10
He will never allow something like this to
happen

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Scenario 2: Open ended questions
Now study the following:
1. Who broke this window?
2. What is his name?
3. Where do you live?
4. When can I visit you to talk about our travel plans?
5. Why are you always stressed?
6. When will you learn to be patient?
7. What have you done to yourself?
8. What has he not done which all others have?
9. Why did Shobhit not work hard for his exams?
10. Where have you been all this while?
11. What is the matter with you?
12. When can you come and see me?
These are more complicated questions – which cannot be simply answered in a yes or no.
Let’s do a simple exercise and see how questions and their answers are related for open ended
questions – see if you can make more than one questions corresponding to the same answer:
Sl No Question 1 Answer Question 2
1
What can you do to be safe
on roads?
Why should you follow
traffic rules?
2
What role does Harbhajan
play in Indian cricket team?
Who is the lead-spinner of
the Indian cricket team?
3
George Washington was the first
president of the USA
4
Who broke the library
window?
5
Where does he work?
6
Arjun killed Karna in the battle of
Mahabharata
7
This blue bottle is broken
8
Who went on a foot march
to Dandi to protest against
the British rule?
9
MS Dhoni is the captain of Indian
cricket team
10
Sachin is the highest run getter in
Test and one-day cricket

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11
Rabindra Nath Tagore was the first
Indian to be awarded the Nobel
Prize
12
What is Delhi famous for?
13
Who was the great Maratha
warrior who gave tough time
to Aurangzeb?
14
What is Brahmos? What is the supersonic
missile developed by Indian
scientists?
Scenario 3: Question Tags
Question tags are not really questions. Tags are essentially means to stress your point in the same way
as we use, “है न”, or “है क नह ं” etc.
1. You like cricket, don’t you?
2. It is very hot today, isn’t it?
3. He is an extremely powerful person in his country, isn’t he?
4. They have not done their work, have they?
5. We need to prepare a skit really quickly, don’t we?
6. He didn’t call you yesterday, did he?
7. She never replied to your letters, did she?
8. Sooraj won the match, didn’t he?
9. They will come tomorrow, won’t they?
10. He is coming back home, isn’t he?
11. She eats a lot, doesn’t she?
Note that the question tags essentially try to verify what you already suspect (or believe to be true).
Also, please note that the sense of a question tag is opposite to the expected response. For example, in
sentence 1 above, “You like cricket” - the speaker suspects that the listener likes cricket and so the
question tag that he forms has a negative in it.
Similarly, in sentence 4, “They have not done their homework”, the speaker suspects that they have not
done their homework and hence the tag does not have a negative.
Note that the tags are used in spoken English – you normally do not use question tags in written English
as long as you are not narrating a story or reporting a conversation.
Let’s now use the correct question tags in the following sentences:

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Sl No Statement Question Tag
1
They are ready for the match on Sunday.
2
She will go to the US in May.
3
He never paid enough attention to his studies.
4
I did not break any of the rules of the
committee.
5
He goes to school everyday
6
He will grow up to be a strong lad
7
India will become a superpower by 2020
8
The tigers have been heavily poached by the
erstwhile kings and nawabs
9
He believes that one day, dinosaurs will be
back on the earth
10
He will work very hard and make everyone
around him work hard too
11
Shalini has been working as a typist
12
I went to meet him despite heavy rain
13
They will definitely thank you for all the help
you offered
14
The ship sank because of overload