Adverbs vs Adjectives

Adjectives and Adverbs

A Review

What is an Adjective?

Adjectives are words that describe the qualities or states of being of nouns: enormous, doglike, silly, yellow, fun, fast. They can also describe the quantity of nouns: many, few, millions, eleven.


Adjectives tell the reader how much—or how many—of something you’re talking about, which thing you want passed to you, or which kind of something you want.

Multiple Select

Choose the adjective(s) in the sentence below:

Margot wore a beautiful hat to the pie-eating contest.

• Margot

• hat

• beautiful

• pie-eating

Practice Question 1 Review

In previous question, both "beautiful" and "pie-eating" are adjectives because they both describe nouns.

"beautiful" tells the reader the quality of the hat
"pie-eating" tells the reader which contest

Open Ended

Write the adjective(s) in the sentence below:

The tall, slim girl proudly waved her Jamaican flag.

Practice Question 2 Review

In previous question, tall, slim, and Jamaican are all adjectives

"tall and slim" give us a physical description of the girl, while "Jamaican" tells us witch flag.

What is an Adverb?

An adverb is a word that modifies (describes) a verb (he sings loudly), an adjective (very tall), another adverb (ended too quickly), or even a whole sentence (Fortunately, I had brought an umbrella). Adverbs often end in -ly, but some (such as fast) look exactly the same as their adjective counterparts.

Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering questions such as how?, in what way?, when?, where?, and to what extent?.

Multiple Choice

Choose the adverb(s) in the sentence below:

The sound he made as he slept was barely noticeable.

• barely

• sound

• slept

• noticeable

Practice Question 3 Review

In the question "barely" is the adverb.

"Barely" tells us to what degree the sound is noticeable.

Open Ended

Write the adverb(s) in the sentence below:

He stumbled sleepily across the floor and reached the coffee thirstily.

Practice Question 4 Review

In the question "sleepily" and "thirstily" are the adverbs.

"Sleepily" tells us how he stumbled and "thirstily" tells us how he reached for the coffee.

Poll

The shrew is a small, ferocious mammal.

Ferocious is a:

• adverb

• adjective

Poll

Everyone I know thought the movie was terribly boring and almost too long to bear.

Too is a:

• adjective

• adverb

Poll

The lion tamers approached the escaped lioness very carefully.

Very is a:

• adjective

• adverb

Poll

In the empty house, dried flowers hung on the faded yellow wall.

Dried is a:

• adjective

• adverb

Poll

I ran out of the house so fast I forgot to pack my running shoes.

Running is a:

• adjective

• adverb

• verb