Basics. Adjective + Preposition: Good at and Afraid of

Easy Medium A1 | Elementary | Beginners Adjective Gerund Preposition Collocations

Adjective + Preposition: Good at and Afraid of

In English, many adjectives are always followed by specific prepositions. Because there are no strict rules for guessing which one is correct, these combinations simply have to be memorized! For example, you are good at sports (not good in), and you might be afraid of spiders (not afraid from). Mixing up these tiny words is a very common mistake.

This challenge tests your knowledge of common adjective and preposition collocations through a series of fun, quirky scenarios. You will help Count Vlad the vampire set up his online dating profile, complete a dog's performance review of his human, and fix a superhero's resume. Along the way, you will practice pairing adjectives with their correct prepositions, including interested in, famous for, bad at, proud of, and tired of.

You'll work through 10 questions in a fun mix of single-choice, multi-choice, drop-down, and drag-and-drop formats.

Try the quiz to check your knowledge!

Back View Answers Start Download PDF

Adjective

✅ a tall building — ❌ a tally building
✅ The soup is hot — ❌ The soup is hotly
✅ a lovely small old table — ❌ a small lovely old table
✅ She seems tired — ❌ She seems tiredly

These bolded words are adjectives — words that describe nouns or pronouns. They sit before a noun (a tall building) or after a linking verb (The soup is hot).

Pattern: if a word can slot between a/the and a noun (a ___ thing) and can take -er/-est, it's almost certainly an adjective.

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.

Preposition

✅ interested in — ❌ interested on
✅ good at football — ❌ good in football
✅ depend on — ❌ depend of
✅ arrive at the station — ❌ arrive to the station

Prepositions link nouns to the rest of the sentence: time (at 5pm), place (in London), manner (with care), abstract (afraid of). Most are idiomatic — the "correct" preposition must be memorised with each verb/adjective combination.

Rule: there is no universal rule. English prepositions are learned by combination: interested IN, good AT, depend ON, afraid OF. Your native language's equivalent will often mislead.

Collocations

✅ make a decision — ❌ do a decision
✅ strong coffee — ❌ powerful coffee
✅ heavy rain — ❌ strong rain
✅ highly unlikely — ❌ very unlikely (grammatical, but less natural)

Collocations are word pairs that English habitually puts together. Both options may be grammatically valid, but one sounds native and the other doesn't.

Pattern: there's no logic to predict them — you make decisions but do homework, you have strong coffee but heavy rain. They must be learned as chunks, not deduced from rules.

A1 | Elementary | Beginners

✅ My name is Anna. — present simple of be
✅ Where is the station? — basic *wh-*question
✅ I have two brothers. — possession with have
✅ She likes coffee. — third-person -s

These are A1 sentences — the starting level of the CEFR framework. At A1 you can introduce yourself, ask and answer simple personal questions, and handle basic everyday transactions using present tense, be/have/do, and core vocabulary.

If you can say these but freeze at normal speaking speed, you're solidly A1 — and that's exactly where to start.

Easy

She is a teacher. — one verb form, one rule
I have two cats. — basic possession, short sentence
He doesn't like coffee. — simple negation with do-support
Only one answer is clearly correct; distractors are obviously wrong.

Easy marks beginner-level challenges: A1–early A2, one rule at a time, everyday vocabulary, no trick questions.

Use "Easy" when you want to build confidence on a specific rule without interference from other grammar or tricky contexts.

Medium

If I were you, I would apologise. — one rule (second conditional), but distractors like was tempt you
Answers require active thought, not instant pattern recognition
Vocabulary and context are realistic, not artificially simplified
Usually tests one rule, but the wrong answers are plausible

Medium marks middle-difficulty challenges: A2–B1, one rule tested, but with realistic distractors that require genuine understanding.

Use "Medium" when Easy feels too obvious but Hard feels overwhelming. This is where most productive learning happens — the sweet spot of difficulty.