How well do you know the parts of speech?

Because words may have different functions in different sentences, they can belong to more than one of the eight parts of speech: verb, noun, pronoun, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection. For example, the word book can be a noun (for example, the book is on the desk) or a verb (for example, she asked me to book a room for our meeting). See Grammar-Ease: Terms and Definitions for definitions of grammar terms.

Try our quiz! See if you can name the parts of speech of the highlighted words below.

1. The clown jumped over the bucket, tripped over her feet and fell flat on her face.
   • a) verbb) nounc) pronound) adjectivee) adverbf) prepositiong) conjunctionh) interjection
2. I'm late with my report, and I can't face my supervisor.
   • a) verbb) nounc) pronound) adjectivee) adverbf) prepositiong) conjunctionh) interjection
3. Yikes! My computer has just crashed, and I've lost my entire recipe file.
   • a) verbb) nounc) pronound) adjectivee) adverbf) prepositiong) conjunctionh) interjection
4. He wasn't sure that twenty zucchini plants would be enough, so he planted another ten.
   • a) verbb) nounc) pronound) adjectivee) adverbf) prepositiong) conjunctionh) interjection
5. Although he gave hundreds of zucchini away, the enormous mound that was left over frightened him.
   • a) verbb) nounc) pronound) adjectivee) adverbf) prepositiong) conjunctionh) interjection
6. Later that summer he asked himself, "What was I thinking of?"
   • a) verbb) nounc) pronound) adjectivee) adverbf) prepositiong) conjunctionh) interjection
7. The manager confidently made her presentation to the board of directors.
   • a) verbb) nounc) pronound) adjectivee) adverbf) prepositiong) conjunctionh) interjection
8. That motorcycle is hers.
   • a) verbb) nounc) pronound) adjectivee) adverbf) prepositiong) conjunctionh) interjection
9. Small children often insist that they can do things by themselves.
   • a) verbb) nounc) pronound) adjectivee) adverbf) prepositiong) conjunctionh) interjection
10. They wondered if there truly was honour among thieves.
    • a) verbb) nounc) pronound) adjectivee) adverbf) prepositiong) conjunctionh) interjection

Note: Adapted from HyperGrammar (copyright 1994, 1995 and 1996) produced by the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ottawa.