Basics. Gerunds After Prepositions
Gerunds After Prepositions
In English, whenever a verb directly follows a preposition, it must take the -ing form (the gerund). For example, you should say "She is capable of managing the team" instead of "capable of manage," or "He left without saying goodbye." This rule even applies to the tricky preposition to in specific phrasal verbs, such as "I look forward to meeting you."
This challenge will test your ability to match the correct prepositions with verbs, nouns, and adjectives, followed by the proper gerund forms. You will encounter fun, real-world scenarios like a detective tracking a thief who apologized for stealing, an alien tourist obsessed with staring at screens, and a clumsy spy who is terrible at blending in.
You'll work through 12 questions featuring an engaging mix of single-choice, multi-choice, drop-down, and drag-and-drop formats.
Try the quiz to check your knowledge!
Adjective
An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun — giving more information about its quality, state, or identity. Adjectives sit either before the noun (a tall building) or after a linking verb (The soup is hot), and they answer questions like what kind?, which one?, or how many?
Getting adjectives right matters for two everyday reasons: their position is fixed (you can't say a redly dress), and when you stack several before a noun, English follows a strict order — opinion, then size, then age, then colour. Break that order and the sentence sounds off even when each word is correct.
Gerund
A gerund is the -ing form of a verb used as a noun — swimming, reading, being late. It can sit in any position a noun can: as the subject (Swimming is fun), as the object of a verb (I enjoy swimming), or as the complement of a preposition (She's good at swimming).
Gerunds matter because dozens of common English verbs and almost every preposition force you into the -ing form. Pick the wrong shape — I enjoy to swim, good at to swim — and the sentence sounds clearly off to a native speaker. Knowing which contexts demand a gerund (vs. an infinitive) is what makes verb patterns click.
Noun
A noun is a word that names something — a person, place, thing, idea, action, or quality. Nouns are one of the open word classes in English, alongside verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. They typically appear as the subject or object of a clause, after articles or adjectives, and as the head of a noun phrase.
Recognising nouns reliably is the foundation for nearly every other grammar topic — agreement, articles, plurals, possessives, and prepositions all depend on it. Get this right and the rest of English grammar starts to fall into place.
Phrasal verb
A phrasal verb is a verb combined with one or two short words — a particle, a preposition, or both — that together carry a meaning you can't predict from the parts: give up (quit), run into (meet by chance), put up with (tolerate). The combination behaves as a single unit even though it looks like several words.
English has thousands of these, and they're everywhere in everyday speech. Learning them as whole units — take off, look after, come across — beats trying to decode them word-by-word, and it's the fastest way to make your English sound less stiff and more natural.
Phrase
In grammar, a phrase is a group of words (sometimes a single word) that functions as a single unit in a sentence — but doesn't include a subject + verb pair the way a clause does. Common types: noun phrase (the old red car), verb phrase (has been running), prepositional phrase (on the table), adjective phrase (incredibly tired), adverb phrase (very quickly).
Phrases are the building blocks between individual words and full clauses. Recognising them helps you see how sentences hold together — and where you can break, expand, or rearrange them without losing meaning.
Preposition
A preposition is a small word that links a noun or noun phrase to other parts of the sentence — usually marking time, place, or relationship: in, on, at, to, from, with, over, under, between, during. The book on the table, We met at noon, She lives in Berlin.
Prepositions are deceptively small. Their meaning shifts dramatically by collocation (depend on, good at, afraid of), and their choice rarely translates directly between languages. Picking the right preposition is one of the trickiest, most idiomatic-sounding parts of English.
Verb
A verb is a word that expresses an action, a state, or an occurrence — the engine of every English sentence. Most verbs have five forms: base (go), -s form (goes), past tense (went), past participle (gone), and -ing form (going). The verb be is the major exception with eight forms; modal verbs like can and must have fewer.
Verbs carry tense (when), aspect (how it unfolds), mood (the speaker's attitude), and voice (active vs passive). Mastering them is foundational — virtually every other grammar topic depends on getting verbs right.
Progressive tense
The progressive aspect (also called continuous) marks an action as ongoing at the time of reference, formed with be + present participle (-ing): I am working, She was reading, They will be travelling. It signals temporary or in-progress events — the contrast with the simple aspect (I work = habit; I'm working = right now) is one of the most-used distinctions in English.
Some verbs (stative verbs like know, believe, own, belong) don't normally take the progressive — I'm knowing the answer sounds wrong. Recognising stative vs dynamic verbs is what stops you from over-applying the rule.
Collocations
Collocations are combinations of words that habitually occur together in a fixed order — make a decision (not do a decision), strong coffee (not powerful coffee), heavy rain (not thick rain). The grammar would allow either pairing, but native speakers consistently pick one and reject the other. Common patterns include verb + noun, adjective + noun, adverb + adjective, and adverb + verb.
Learning vocabulary as collocations rather than isolated words is the single fastest way to sound natural in English. It's the difference between I made a big mistake and I did a big mistake — small, but immediately noticeable.
B1 | Intermediate
B1 is the intermediate level in the CEFR framework — the point where you stop relying on memorised phrases and start handling everyday English independently. At B1 you can describe experiences, explain opinions, and follow most clear standard speech on familiar topics like work, travel, and hobbies.
Grammatically, B1 means combining tenses with precision, building complex sentences, and starting to use passive voice, modal verbs for necessity and possibility, and verb patterns (gerund vs. infinitive). Knowing your level shapes what you study next: pushing too far ahead frustrates you; staying below your level wastes time.
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.