Infinitives Quizzes

The most effective approach is to teach students a substitution test: if you can replace 'to' with 'in order to' and the sentence still makes sense, the phrase is likely an infinitive. For prepositional phrases, the word following 'to' is always a noun or pronoun, never a verb. Using side-by-side sentence comparisons — such as 'She went to the store' versus 'She wanted to run' — helps students internalize this distinction quickly.

Infinitives can function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs in a sentence. As a noun, an infinitive can serve as the subject, object, or complement (e.g., 'To read is relaxing'). As an adjective, it modifies a noun (e.g., 'She needed a book to read'), and as an adverb, it modifies a verb or adjective (e.g., 'He studied hard to pass'). Teaching students to identify each function strengthens their overall sentence analysis skills.

Effective practice exercises include underlining infinitives in authentic sentences, classifying their grammatical function (noun, adjective, or adverb), rewriting sentences to incorporate infinitive phrases, and correcting misidentified examples that include prepositional phrases starting with 'to.' Progressing from recognition tasks to original sentence construction ensures students move beyond rote identification toward confident, accurate usage in their own writing.

The most common error is confusing infinitives with prepositional phrases — students see 'to' and assume a noun follows rather than checking for a base verb. Students also frequently struggle with split infinitives, either avoiding them unnecessarily or using them without awareness. A third persistent error is misidentifying the function of an infinitive within a sentence, particularly distinguishing adverbial infinitives from adjectival ones.

Wayground's infinitives quizzes are available as printable PDFs for traditional classroom use and in digital formats for technology-integrated environments, giving you flexibility depending on your instructional context. You can also host them as a quiz directly on Wayground, which allows for interactive student engagement and streamlined grading. All quizzes include complete answer keys, making them ready to use for direct instruction, independent practice, homework, or targeted grammar remediation.

For students who need additional support, start with recognition-only tasks using simple, high-frequency sentences before moving to function-identification or construction activities. On Wayground, teachers can apply accommodations such as reduced answer choices to decrease cognitive load for struggling learners, or enable Read Aloud so students can hear sentence examples read to them. Advanced students benefit from tasks that require them to write original sentences using infinitives in all three grammatical functions, then peer-edit for correct usage.