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Help the shocked dinner host confront her supposedly vegan guest by selecting the correct negative question forms.
"Wait a minute, _________________________ supposed to be a strict vegan? ____________________________ me last week that cheese was your mortal enemy?"

The correct answers are aren't you and Didn't you tell.

We often use negative questions to express surprise or to check if something we believe to be true is actually true.

"Aren't you supposed to be..." checks a present expectation.

"Didn't you tell me last week..." uses the past simple because of the specific past time marker ("last week").

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Questions

Questions in English are typically formed by inverting the subject and an auxiliary verb: She can danceCan she dance?. When there's no auxiliary present, English adds do-support: The milk goes in the fridgeDoes the milk go in the fridge?. The same pattern handles wh-questions (Where do you live?) and negative questions (Doesn't he know?).

The trickiest variant is indirect questionsI wonder where he is, not where is he. The inversion drops because the question is embedded inside another clause. Getting this right is one of the bigger jumps from A2 to B1 fluency.

Negation

Negation in English usually places not after the auxiliary or modal verb: I am not going, She does not know, You must not go. When there's no auxiliary, you add do-support: I goI do not go. Most combinations contract: don't, can't, won't, isn't.

The trickiest rule for many learners: double negatives are not standard English. I didn't see nothing is non-standard; the standard forms are I saw nothing or I didn't see anything. Negative words like never, nobody, nothing already carry the negation — adding not on top doubles up.

Verb tense

Verb tense is the verb form that signals when the action happens. English has three time references — past, present, and future — combined with three aspects (simple, progressive, perfect, plus perfect progressive) to give twelve standard tense forms in total.

Each tense form carries specific meaning beyond just "when". I worked (simple past) and I have worked (present perfect) both refer to past action, but only the second connects that action to the present. Picking the right tense is what makes English narratives clear; the wrong one makes meaning subtly drift.

Past tense

The past tense is how English talks about events finished before now. It comes in four flavours: simple past (I walked) for completed events, past progressive (I was walking) for actions ongoing at a past time, past perfect (I had walked) for events before another past event, and past perfect progressive (I had been walking) for ongoing events leading up to a past point.

Choosing the right one is what makes past narratives clear instead of murky. When I arrived, she ate dinner is technically grammatical but means something different than had eaten (already done) or was eating (in progress when you arrived).

Present tense

The present tense in English has four forms: simple present (I work) for habits, general truths, and stative descriptions; present progressive (I am working) for actions happening right now or temporary situations; present perfect (I have worked) for past actions with present relevance; and present perfect progressive (I have been working) for ongoing actions continuing into the present.

The simple/progressive distinction is one of the trickiest jumps for learners — I work in Paris (habitual) and I'm working in Paris (temporary, right now) feel almost identical but signal different things. Pick wrong and your meaning subtly shifts.

B2 | Upper Intermediate

B2 is the upper-intermediate level in the CEFR framework, sitting between B1 and C1. At B2 you can read editorials, follow most TED talks without subtitles, and hold extended conversations on abstract topics — including topics outside your everyday life.

Grammatically, B2 means flexible control of mixed conditionals, passive voice across tenses, reported speech with proper backshifting, and participle clauses. B2 is the standard target for university entrance exams (IELTS 5.5–6.5, TOEFL 87–109) and most skilled-migration thresholds — knowing whether you're there shapes your study plan.

Difficulty: Medium

The Medium difficulty tag marks questions and challenges in the middle of the difficulty range — typically suitable for A2 to B1 learners. Expect a single rule with realistic distractors, longer sentences, and contexts where you have to think before answering rather than reading off the obvious choice.

Filter by Medium when you're past the absolute basics and ready to consolidate. It's the level where most lasting progress happens — easy enough that you can finish without exhausting concentration, hard enough that getting it right means you've actually understood.