Select correct answer.
Larry swore to tell the truth about not cheating his wife. However, she didn't trust him and considered getting divorced.
Larry swore to tell the truth about not cheating his wife. However, she didn't trust him and considered getting divorced.
The verb swear is followed by a to-infinitive. Larry swore to tell the truth about not cheating his wife. However, she didn't trust him and considered getting divorced. The verb consider is followed by a gerund.
Gerund
- ✅ I enjoy reading. — ❌ I enjoy to read.
- ✅ She's good at swimming. — ❌ She's good at to swim.
- ✅ He avoids making eye contact. — gerund after avoid
- ✅ Running is good exercise. — gerund as subject
A gerund is the -ing form of a verb functioning as a noun. It follows verbs like enjoy, avoid, finish, mind and ALL prepositions. Never use an infinitive where a gerund is required.
Rule: after a preposition (at, in, of, about, without) → always gerund. After enjoy, avoid, finish, mind, suggest, deny → always gerund.
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.
A2 | Elementary | Pre-intermediate
- ✅ I went to the cinema yesterday. — past simple
- ✅ I have visited Paris twice. — present perfect (life experience)
- ✅ If it rains, I'll take an umbrella. — first conditional
- ✅ You should see a doctor. — modal for advice
These patterns are A2 — the second CEFR level. At A2 you move past survival phrases into real grammar: past tenses, the present perfect, basic conditionals, and modals for advice/obligation.
Marker: if you can describe yesterday and give simple advice, but struggle with abstractions or nuance, you're at A2.
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.