For the P5 English Paper 2 examination, it is common to find question tags in the Grammar MCQ section.
Today, we will be looking at 3 common types of question tags for the P5 English Paper 2 examination, highlighting the common mistakes and how to avoid them.
Question Tags – Question Type 1
At the Primary 5 level, negative questions are worded in an indirect manner using frequency adverbs such as hardly, rarely and seldom.
Pupils must consider frequency adverbs as a keyword in the question as they directly affect the question tag.
It is a common mistake for pupils to ignore the given frequency adverb like the above example. The frequency adverb “hardly” refers to something that almost never happens. Therefore it has a negative meaning. This means that pupils should treat “hardly travel” as “almost never travel”.
Consequently, the resulting question tag should then be a positive one as illustrated in the correct answer above.
Question Tags – Question Type 2
For some questions, pupils must identify a hidden keyword to reach the correct answer for the question tag.
Why is the keyword hidden?
According to the sentence structure of the question, the keyword may be unnecessary or be grammatically inappropriate in the question.
Pupils should note that for verbs, there is a hidden keyword before the verb.
For the above example, it is a common mistake to identify have as the keyword.
As it is a verb, there should be a hidden keyword do before it. Consequently, the correct question tag is don’t.
Question Tags – Question Type 3
Another common question type makes use of contractions. To answer a question correctly, pupils should identify the contraction in the question and know it is a “short form” for which words. Refer here for a list of common contractions.
In the above example, it is extremely common for pupils to mistakenly assume that won’t is the contraction for would not. This is incorrect as won’t is the contraction for will not.
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