Question patterns

1. Question patterns
Econ. William Figueroa, MBA

2. Wh- subject and object questions
• In subject questions, the question Word or phrase (who, what, how many,
how much, which, what type of, etc.) is the subject of the verb.
• We use the positive form of the verb, so in simple present and simple past
tenses, we don’t use do/does/did. For example:
• Who usually teaches his class? , What happened last week?

3. Wh- subject and object questions
• In many wh-questions, the question Word or phrase is the object of the verb.
In object questions, we use an auxiliary verb before the subject. For example:
• Who have you invited to your party? , What are you doing?

4. Negative questions
• To form a negative question, we put a contracted negative form of the verb
be, auxiliary, or modal verb before the subject. For example:
• Wasn’t she the woman we met last week? , Don’t you want to go out tonight?
• We use a negative question when we think we know something, but we want
to check. For example:
• Didn’t he write several novels? = I think he wrote several novels. Is that right?

5. Negative questions
• We also use negative questions to express surprise or to make a suggestion.
For example:
• Haven’t you been to this museum before? (surprise)
• Shouldn’t you start thinking about graduate school? (suggestion)

6. Tag questions
• We can use a statement with a tag question when we think we know
something, but we want to check. The intonation rises on the tag question.
For example:
• You’re from Spain, aren’t you? = I think you are from Spain. Is that right?
• He doesn’t like art, does he? = I don’t think he likes art. Is that right?

7. Tag questions
• When we use a tag question as a conversation opener or to make a comment, the
intonation falls on the tag question. For example:
• It’s a hot day, isn’t it? (conversation opener)
• He’s not very organized, is he? (comment)
• With positive statements, we use a negative tag question. With negative statements,
we use a positive tag question. The negative tag for “I am” is “aren’t I”. For
example:
• I’m usually right, aren’t I?

8. Indirect questions
• We ask an indirect yes/no question with the following structure:
• Yes/no question + if + subject + verb form + rest of sentence. For
example:
• Did they play yesterday -> Could you tell me if they played yesterday?
• When we ask an indirect wh-question, we use the question Word(s) instead
of if. For example:
• How much will it cost? -> Could you tell me how much it will cost?

9. Question patterns summary

10. Speaking: Pronunciation

11. Workshop
1. isn’t it, do you like?
2. Starts
3. Happened
4. Haven’t we met, weren’t
5. Don’t enjoy, do

12. Workshop
1. Who painted
Raccoon?
2. What type of
art do you like?
3. How many
came to the
concert?
4. What is the title
of the
painting?
5. Which
Museum in
Vienna has the
kiss?
6. What were you
doing when the
pone rang?
7. What
happened?
8. What did you
do on the
weekend?
9. Who did you
visit on the
weekend?

13. Workshop

14. Workshop