English: Word Classes

In a type of word question, you get a passage with numbered lines. The question picks out one word, and tells you which line it's on. Then it asks what type of word it is, and gives you five types to choose from.

Sometimes you get a set of words instead, and you find the type they all share. Either way, one thing decides it: the job the word does, on that line.

In GL's papers the question never says "word class": it asks What type of word is…? The video above and the worked examples below work through the same two questions, with the options in the same order.

The method

Four steps: find it on its line, ask what job it does, look at its neighbours, test each option.

Worked example

The Little Girl in the Attic: Sara has woken up in her bare attic to find a fire burning in the grate.

73 The blazing fire drew her to it, and she knelt

74 down and held out her hands close to it—so

75 close that the heat made her start back.

What type of word is "blazing" in line 73?

A. adjective B. verb C. noun D. adverb E. preposition

1. Find it on its line. Go to line 73, and find blazing. Then read the whole sentence it sits in, right to the full stop on line 75.
2. Ask what job it does. A noun names a thing. A verb is the action or state. An adjective describes a noun. And an adverb tells how, when, where or how much. So what is blazing doing here? It tells you what kind of fire it is. That's describing a noun.
3. Look at its neighbours. Blazing ends in I, N, G, so it can look like a doing word. But look at what's around it: the blazing fire. It sits between the and a noun, fire, just where a describing word goes. Swap in another describing word, like bright: the bright fire still makes sense. And what the fire did is drew.
4. Test each option. Option A, adjective. Adjectives describe nouns, and blazing describes the fire. That fits. Option B, verb. A verb is the action, and the action here is drew. So B is out. Option C, noun. The thing named is the fire, not blazing. So C is out. Option D, adverb. An adverb tells how, when or where, but it never describes a noun. So D is out. Option E, preposition. Prepositions, like in or under, link a noun to the rest of the sentence. Blazing links nothing. So E is out. Only one type can do this job. So the answer is A.

Answer: A — adjective (it describes the fire)

A second worked example

The same four steps work when the ending gives you nothing to go on.

The Deciding Game

29 The game began. Kofi played fast, snapping his

30 pieces down and slapping his button as if he

31 were swatting flies. By the twelfth move, he was

What type of word is "fast" in line 29?

A. adverb B. adjective C. noun D. verb E. preposition

1. Find it on its line. Kofi played fast, snapping his pieces down and slapping his button as if he were swatting flies.
2. Ask what job it does. Fast tells you how Kofi played. Telling how is an adverb's job.
3. Look at its neighbours. Fast comes straight after the verb, played, and there's no noun beside it to describe. It has no L, Y, but it's still an adverb.
4. Test each option. Only adverb can tell how. Adjective (B) is out, because there's no noun here for fast to describe. Noun (C) is out: fast isn't naming anything. Verb (D) is out: the action is played. Preposition (E) is out: it isn't linking anything. So fast is an adverb, option A.

Answer: A — adverb (fast tells how Kofi played)

Things to watch out for

1. The job, not the ending. Blazing ends in I, N, G, but it describes the fire, so it's an adjective. Some E, D words describe too, but played is the action, so it's a verb. And lovely ends in L, Y, but in a large lovely garden, it describes the garden. It's an adjective, not an adverb.
2. Read it on its own line. The same word can change type from one line to the next. In one passage, one line talks about a hard frost. There, hard describes the frost, so it's an adjective. But an earlier line says the river froze so hard. There, it tells how the river froze, so it's an adverb. Only the line in the question counts.
3. Adverbs can describe describing words. A girl has two braids of very thick, decidedly red hair. Thick and red describe the hair, so they're adjectives. Very tells you how thick, and decidedly tells you how red. So very and decidedly are adverbs.
4. For a set, every word must pass. Here are four words, each from a different passage. Quietly tells how the tortoise was pacing. Often tells how often Mary's name was left out. Afterwards tells when she wondered. Fast is the odd-looking one: in a fast stream, it would be an adjective, so check it hardest. On its line, it tells how Kofi played. All four pass, so they're all adverbs.

Related

• The complete 11+ question-type guide
• English: Choose the Best Word — pick the word that is correct English and makes sense
• English: Words in Context — what a word means where it sits
• English: Spelling — find the group with the mistake, or choose N

All example questions come from the Brainblox question bank — practise this question type inside 25+ learning games, timed mock exams and focused practice. Brainblox is an independent app: not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by any exam board, school or assessment publisher, and it contains no past papers.