Help the eccentric billionaire's lawyer finish drafting this unusual will.
"In the highly unlikely event of my disappearance, if my pet llama, Reginald, ____ to inherit my vast fortune, the global stock market would surely collapse."
The correct answer is were.
When talking about a highly unlikely or purely hypothetical future event, we can use the structure If + subject + were + to + infinitive (If my llama were to inherit).
Because this is a hypothetical scenario (the subjunctive mood), "were" is the strictly correct choice for all subjects, even singular ones like "llama". "Is" would be used for a real possibility, while "would" and "did" are grammatically invalid before "to inherit" in an if-clause.
Subjunctive mood
- ✅ If I were you… — past subjunctive (not was)
- ✅ I suggest that he go. — present subjunctive (not goes)
- ✅ It's important that she be present. — present subjunctive
- ❌ If I was you… — common in speech, avoided in formal writing
The subjunctive uses bare-infinitive forms (go, be) after verbs of demand/suggestion, and were (not was) in unreal/hypothetical conditions. Two contexts: that-clauses (I insist that he leave) and if-clauses (If she were here).
Rule: after suggest/recommend/demand/insist that… → use base form. In if + unreal condition → use were for all persons.
Conditional sentence
- ✅ If you heat ice, it melts. — zero conditional (always true)
- ✅ If it rains, I*'ll** take an umbrella.* — first conditional (real future)
- ✅ If I had wings, I would fly. — second conditional (unreal present)
- ✅ If I had left earlier, I would have caught the train. — third conditional (unreal past)
Conditional sentences pair an if-clause with a consequence. Five patterns (zero through mixed) each combine specific tenses to express different levels of reality and time.
Pattern: the tense in the if-clause is always one step "back" from what you'd expect — past for present hypotheticals, past perfect for past hypotheticals.
Verb mood
- Indicative: She goes every day. — stating fact
- Imperative: Go now. — giving command
- Subjunctive: I suggest she go. — hypothetical/recommendation
- Conditional: She would go if asked. — dependent on condition
Verb mood marks the speaker's attitude: indicative (fact), imperative (command), subjunctive (unreal/recommended), conditional (would/could). English barely marks mood morphologically — mostly through auxiliaries and word order.
Rule: stating a fact? → indicative. Giving a command? → imperative. Imagining/recommending? → subjunctive or conditional. The mood determines which verb forms and auxiliaries you use.
Infinitive
- ✅ I want to go. — to-infinitive after want
- ✅ She can swim. — bare infinitive after modal
- ✅ Let me help. — bare infinitive after let
- ❌ I enjoy to read. — wrong (enjoy takes gerund, not infinitive)
The infinitive has two forms: to-infinitive (to go) after verbs like want, decide, plan, hope; bare infinitive (go) after modals and causatives (let, make, help).
Rule: after want, need, decide, plan, hope, expect, agree, refuse → to-infinitive. After can, will, must, let, make → bare infinitive. After enjoy, avoid, finish → gerund, NOT infinitive.
C1 | Advanced
- ✅ Not only did she finish early, but she also helped others. — inversion for emphasis
- ✅ It is the process that matters, not the result. — cleft sentence
- ✅ I insist that he be present. — formal subjunctive
- ✅ Were I to disagree, I would say so. — inverted conditional
These are C1 structures — the CEFR advanced level. At C1 you control inversion, cleft sentences, subjunctive forms, and register-switching fluently across formal and informal contexts.
Marker: if you can restructure a sentence for rhetorical effect without hesitation, you're C1.
Hard
- Had she not intervened, the situation would have escalated. — inverted conditional
- All distractors are grammatically plausible in other contexts
- Multiple rules interact (e.g., tense + aspect + modality)
- Context determines the answer — no single "rule" is enough
Hard marks upper-intermediate to advanced challenges: B2+, interacting rules, edge cases, plausible distractors, and contexts where pattern-matching fails.
Use "Hard" when Easy/Medium feel trivial and you want to test whether you actually understand a rule versus just recognising surface patterns.