Complete the neighborhood gossip about the great apple tree debate by dragging the correct words into the blanks.
The neighbors insist the giant apple tree is completely theirs, but since the branches hang over the fence, we think the dropped apples are ours.
The neighbors insist the giant apple tree is completely theirs, but since the branches hang over the fence, we think the dropped apples are ours.
Both missing words are possessive pronouns (theirs and ours). They stand alone without a noun immediately following them, replacing "their tree" and "our apples." If a noun followed them, we would use the adjectives "their" and "our."
Possessive
The possessive form shows ownership or association in English. With most nouns, you add 's (Sarah's book, the dog's tail); with plural nouns ending in s, you add just an apostrophe (the students' essays). Pronouns have irregular possessives — both possessive determiners (my, your, his, her, our, their) and possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs).
The most-mixed-up pair: its (possessive of it) vs it's (= it is). Possessive its takes no apostrophe; it's always means it is or it has. Getting this right is one of the highest-leverage punctuation moves in English.
Pronoun
A pronoun is a small, closed class of words that stands in for a noun or noun phrase. The main types: personal (I, you, he, she, it, we, they) plus their object (me, him) and possessive (my, mine) forms; demonstrative (this, that); relative (who, which, that); interrogative (who, what); and reflexive (myself, yourself).
Pronouns are how English avoids endlessly repeating names. The catch: their meaning depends entirely on context, so unclear pronoun reference (Tom told Mike that he was wrong — who's he?) is one of the most common writing problems.
English Grammar Basics
The English Grammar Basics tag marks quizzes and explainers covering the foundations of English grammar — nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, tenses, voice, mood, and basic sentence structure.
If you're starting out or rebuilding from scratch, this is the tag to follow: every challenge under it is designed to land the core rules without burying you in exceptions. Get the basics solid here and the more advanced topics — conditionals, reported speech, inversion — stop looking like a wall of new rules and start looking like extensions of what you already know.
A2 | Elementary | Pre-intermediate
A2 is the elementary level in the CEFR framework, sitting between A1 and B1. At A2 you can handle routine exchanges — ordering food, asking directions, making small talk — and describe your immediate environment in simple sentences.
Grammatically, A2 introduces past simple and past continuous, present perfect for experiences, basic modal verbs, and the first conditional. You're also picking up collocations and learning which verbs take gerunds vs. infinitives. Knowing your level here is the difference between confident progress and frustration: A2 material consolidates the basics; B1 will overwhelm you.
Difficulty: Easy
The Easy difficulty tag marks questions and challenges aimed at beginners — typically A1 or early A2 level. Expect single-rule focus, short sentences, common everyday vocabulary, and one clear correct answer. Distractors usually rule themselves out quickly.
Filter by Easy when you're rebuilding fundamentals, warming up before harder material, or testing whether you've truly internalised a basic rule before moving on. Easy doesn't mean trivial — it means the rule itself is unambiguous and the context doesn't pile on extra complications.