Reduced Relative Clauses: Participles and Infinitives
Reduced relative clauses allow you to make your writing more concise by shortening adjective clauses. For example, instead of writing "The book that was written by Jane," you can use a passive participle phrase: "The book written by Jane." Similarly, active clauses use present participles ("The man who is standing there" becomes "The man standing there"), and phrases with ordinals or superlatives often reduce to infinitives ("The first person who arrived" becomes "The first person to arrive").
This advanced challenge tests your ability to correctly form and identify these shortened structures. You will tackle active and passive reductions, handle tricky stative and intransitive verbs (like consisting and belonging), and apply infinitive reductions after specific phrases (such as the only artifact to survive). The scenarios are just as challenging as the grammar, featuring cursed museum artifacts, alien starships, scathing restaurant reviews, and frantic IT server meltdowns.
You'll work through 10 questions in a mix of single-choice, multi-choice, drop-down, and drag-and-drop formats.
Try the quiz to check your knowledge!
Correct Answers
Complete the lead scientist's mission log about a strange extraterrestrial discovery.
The alien diet, primarily _____ of glowing blue rocks and cosmic dust, has fascinated our nutritionists for months.
The correct answer is consisting.
The original non-defining relative clause is "which primarily consists of...". Because the verb "consist" is active, we reduce it to the present participle consisting.
This is a common trap! Students often choose "consisted" because it sounds like the passive phrase "composed of." However, the verb "consist" is strictly intransitive and can never be passive. Therefore, it must be reduced using the active "-ing" form.
The waiters dropping plates every five minutes didn't seem to care about the noise.
Use the present participle (-ing) to reduce an active relative clause ("waiters who were dropping plates"). Using the past tense "dropped" here would create a grammatically incorrect run-on sentence.
The soup, served at absolute zero, was ironically the highlight of the meal.
Use the past participle to reduce a passive relative clause ("soup which was served").
I believe I was the only patron to survive the evening without getting food poisoning!
When a noun is modified by phrases like "the first," "the last," or "the only," we use a to-infinitive to reduce the relative clause ("the only patron who survived").
Help the museum curator complete the exhibition label for a bizarre artifact.
Any artifacts _____ to the notorious pirate Captain Blackbeard must be handled with extreme care, as they are most certainly cursed.
The correct answer is belonging.
This is an active reduced relative clause. The original clause is "which belong to...". To reduce an active relative clause, we replace the verb with its present participle (-ing) form.
Even though "belong" is a stative verb that isn't normally used in continuous tenses (we don't say "are belonging"), it must take the -ing form when used in a reduced relative clause. "Belonged" is incorrect because "belong" cannot be passive.
The correct answers are: The soup served in a hollowed-out pumpkin tasted suspiciously like dish soap. The waiter carrying the flaming desserts tripped over the owner's cat.
"served in a hollowed-out pumpkin" correctly reduces a passive relative clause (which was served).
"carrying the flaming desserts" correctly reduces an active relative clause (who was carrying).
The sentence about the chef has two main verbs ("was yelling" and "threw") and needs either a relative pronoun (who was yelling) or a reduction (yelling).
The sentence about the steak uses the active present participle ("ordering") instead of the passive past participle ("ordered").
The sentence about the dessert contains a full relative clause ("which was covered"), not a reduced one.
Complete the frustrated traveler's diary entry.
The passengers _____ stranded at the airport for over twelve hours finally received a half-hearted apology and a single stale donut.
The correct answer is left.
This is a passive reduced relative clause. The full clause would be "who were left stranded." To reduce it, we remove the relative pronoun ("who") and the "be" verb ("were"), leaving only the past participle left.
"Leaving" would incorrectly imply the passengers were doing the action of leaving someone else. "Were left" creates a grammar error because the sentence already has a main verb ("received").
Help the museum curator finalize the placards for the new "Cursed Antiquities" exhibit by dragging the correct words into the blanks.
The only artifact to survive the 1920 museum fire is a cryptic diary written in invisible ink. Visitors hoping to read its contents must use a special ultraviolet flashlight.
The only artifact to survive the 1920 museum fire is a cryptic diary written in invisible ink. Visitors hoping to read its contents must use a special ultraviolet flashlight.
to survive: We use a to-infinitive clause to reduce a relative clause after phrases like "the only", "the first", "the last", or "the next" (instead of "that survived").
written: We use a past participle to reduce a passive relative clause (short for "which was written").
hoping: We use a present participle to reduce an active relative clause (short for "who are hoping").
The correct answers are orbiting the gas giant and damaged in the recent skirmish.
"orbiting the gas giant" is an active present participle phrase reducing the clause which were orbiting the gas giant.
"damaged in the recent skirmish" is a passive past participle phrase reducing the clause which had been damaged in the recent skirmish.
"which were transmitting a peace signal" is grammatically correct but is a full relative clause, not a reduced one.
"were orbiting the gas giant" creates a run-on sentence with two main verbs ("were orbiting" and "vanished").
"having damaged in the recent skirmish" is incorrect because it uses an active perfect participle for a passive meaning.
Complete the IT manager's frantic incident report about the recent server meltdown by dragging the correct verb forms into the gaps.
The first technician to identify the glitch was a junior intern assigned to the night shift. Anyone experiencing login issues today should restart their computer immediately.
The first technician to identify the glitch was a junior intern assigned to the night shift. Anyone experiencing login issues today should restart their computer immediately.
to identify: We use a to-infinitive to reduce a relative clause following ordinal numbers like "the first", "the second", etc. (instead of "who identified").
assigned: We use a past participle to reduce a passive relative clause (short for "who was assigned").
experiencing: We use a present participle to reduce an active relative clause (short for "who is experiencing").
The correct answers are: The artifacts found in the hidden chamber glowed with a strange green light. Anyone touching the golden idol will immediately turn into a parrot. The last person to leave the temple must seal the stone door.
"found in the hidden chamber" is a passive reduced relative clause (shortened from which were found).
"touching the golden idol" is an active reduced relative clause (shortened from who touches).
"to leave the temple" is an infinitive reduced relative clause (shortened from who leaves).
The sentences containing "who tripped" and "which was drawn" are grammatically correct, but they contain full relative clauses, not reduced ones!
The mysterious alien artifacts found near the landing zone have started glowing neon green.
Use the past participle to reduce a simple passive relative clause ("artifacts which were found").
Any crew members experiencing sudden urges to sing opera must report to the medical bay immediately.
Use the present participle to reduce an active relative clause ("crew members who are experiencing").
The engine repairs currently being done on the outer hull are absolutely critical for our escape.
To reduce a continuous passive relative clause ("repairs which are currently being done"), use being + the past participle. Just using "done" would imply the repairs are already finished, which contradicts the word "currently."
Clause
If you've ever been told your sentence is a "run-on" or that you've used a comma where there should be a semicolon — you've hit the limits of writing without seeing clauses. Get this concept solid and most punctuation problems quietly disappear: you can finally tell a complete thought from a fragment without guessing.
A clause is a grammatical unit built around a verb, usually with a subject and a predicate. Independent clauses stand alone (I missed the bus); dependent clauses can't (Because I overslept). Combine them and you build complex sentences.
Complex sentence
If your writing is technically correct but reads like a list of short, disconnected statements — I overslept. I missed the bus. I was late. — you've hit the limit of what simple sentences can do. Complex sentences are how you fuse those into one flowing thought (Because I overslept, I missed the bus and was late). It's the single biggest jump in writing maturity.
A complex sentence combines an independent clause with at least one dependent clause: I missed the bus because I overslept. The dependent clause typically signals time, reason, condition, or describes a noun, and is introduced by subordinating conjunctions (because, although, if, when) or relative pronouns.
Infinitive
If you've ever written I enjoy to swim or He let me to go and only later learned why both are wrong — you've hit the infinitive's main puzzle. English is fussy: some verbs demand the to-infinitive, some demand the bare infinitive, some demand the gerund, and a few accept multiple options with different meanings (remember to lock vs remember locking).
The infinitive is the basic form of a verb, used non-finitely. The to-infinitive (to go) follows verbs like want, decide, plan; the bare infinitive (go) follows modal verbs (can, will) and causatives (Let him go).
Participle
If you've ever written I should have went and been corrected to should have gone — you've hit the past participle's main rule. The participle isn't an exotic form; it's the workhorse that builds perfect tenses, passive voice, and dozens of common adjectives. Get the irregular ones automatic and your tenses fall into place.
A participle is a verb form acting as an adjective or adverb. The present participle is the -ing form (running, sitting); the past participle is -ed (regular: walked) or irregular (broken, gone, written). Participles build perfect tenses, progressive tenses, and the passive.
Phrase
If you've ever read a long sentence in English and felt lost in the middle, you've hit a sentence with too many phrases stacked together. Learning to spot phrases — on the table, the man with the hat, very quickly — turns dense prose into something you can parse: each phrase is one chunk of meaning, not a string of unrelated words.
A phrase is a group of words functioning as a single unit in a sentence, without a subject + verb pair (which would make it a clause). Types include noun phrase (the red car), verb phrase (has been running), prepositional phrase (on the table), and adjective/adverb phrases.
Relative clause
If you've ever paused over who vs whom vs that vs which — or wondered whether a comma belongs before who — you've hit the relative-clause puzzle. English makes meaning depend on whether the clause is essential information or just extra; one missing comma can flip the meaning of the whole sentence.
A relative clause is a dependent clause modifying a noun, introduced by a relative pronoun (who, whom, whose, which, that) or relative adverb (where, when, why). Restrictive relatives are essential and unmarked; non-restrictive are extra information and set off with commas.
Verb
If grammar feels overwhelming, the fix is almost always to focus on verbs first. They carry the action, the time, the mood, and the voice — a single verb form decides whether your sentence reads as past or present, fact or hypothetical, active or passive. Get verbs solid and the rest of grammar suddenly looks much smaller.
A verb expresses action, state, or occurrence — the engine of every English sentence. Most verbs have five forms (base, -s, past tense, past participle, -ing); be has eight; modal verbs have fewer. Verbs carry tense, aspect, mood, and voice.
Passive voice
If your writing has been called "weak" or "evasive" — Mistakes were made, It was decided that... — you've hit the passive voice's main pitfall. Used deliberately, the passive is precise and useful: it foregrounds the action when the doer doesn't matter. Used by default, it makes prose feel like nobody's responsible for anything.
The passive voice is formed with be + past participle and turns the object into the subject: The chef cooked the meal → The meal was cooked (by the chef). Useful when the action matters more than the doer; overused, it makes writing feel evasive.
B2 | Upper Intermediate
If a university admissions team or visa office has ever asked you for an English test score, B2 is probably the level they had in mind. It's the threshold where your English stops being a constraint and starts being a tool — and the line between B1 and B2 is often the line between "stuck in beginner classes" and "ready to study or work in English."
B2 is the upper-intermediate level in the CEFR framework, demanding flexible control of mixed conditionals, passive voice across tenses, reported speech with backshifting, and participle clauses.
Difficulty: Hard
If easy and medium questions are clicking but you still feel exposed in real conversation or formal writing, you've outgrown the basics. Hard material is where the gaps you didn't know you had show up: the distractor that "sounds right", the rule that interacts with another rule, the case where context changes the answer. It's where genuine fluency is built.
The Hard difficulty tag marks upper-intermediate to advanced challenges — typically B2 and above. Interacting rules, edge cases, plausible distractors, and contexts that require genuine understanding rather than surface pattern-matching.