Demonstratives: This, That, These, and Those
Demonstratives: This, That, These, and Those
Demonstrative words help us point out specific items based on their distance from the speaker and their quantity. For example, you use "this" for a single item close to you ("this textbook") and "those" for multiple items further away ("those dolls over there").
In this challenge, you will practice choosing the correct demonstrative pronoun or adjective across a variety of imaginative scenarios. You will determine whether objects are near or far, and singular or plural, while helping a wizard go shopping, spotting a UFO while stargazing, navigating a time traveler's adventures, and sorting out a messy roommate's bedroom.
You'll work through 11 questions featuring a mix of single-choice, multi-choice, drop-down, and drag-and-drop formats.
Try the quiz to check your knowledge!
Demonstrative
Demonstratives are pointing words: this, that, these, those. They tell the listener which one you mean — this and these point to things near you; that and those point to things further away (in space, time, or recent attention). They can sit before a noun (Put that coat on) or stand alone as a pronoun (Put that on).
Singular vs plural matches the noun: this book / these books. Mixing them up (these book) is one of the most-corrected slips for learners — small, but immediately noticeable.
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.
Determiner
A determiner is a word that comes before a noun to clarify what it refers to: which one, how many, whose. The English determiners include articles (a, the), demonstratives (this, that), possessives (my, your), quantifiers (some, many, few), and distributives (each, every).
Most singular countable nouns in English require a determiner — I bought book is wrong; you need I bought a book or I bought the book. Determiner choice signals how much information you assume the listener already has, so getting it right shapes how natural your speech and writing sound.
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.
A1 | Elementary | Beginners
A1 is the starting level of the CEFR framework — the entry point into English. At A1 you can introduce yourself, ask and answer simple personal questions, recognise common signs and instructions, and have short slow-paced conversations on very familiar topics.
Grammatically, A1 covers the building blocks: present-tense forms of be, have, and do; basic word order; simple questions; and the most common determiners, pronouns, and prepositions. Knowing your level matters — A1 material teaches the foundations every later level builds on, while a B1 textbook will overwhelm you. Start here and progress is fast.
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.