English for Advanced Practice

Adjectives – Theory and Practice

1. Adjectives are used to modify nouns or as complements to verbs like be and seem:
• A romantic novel • Martin seems happy, and Tracy is cheerful.

!!! Notice these similar adjectives: asleep/sleeping, afloat/floating, afraid/frightened, ajar/open, awake/waking, ablaze/blazing, alone/lone,
alight/burning, and alive/live.

!?! The first one of each pair cannot be used before a noun, and is normally used with the verb be:
• He is awake. • The ship was afloat, • The house was ablaze.

2. With certain verbs, like be, seem, sound, *look, *appear, *taste, *feel and *smell, adjectives, not adverbs, are used:
• This dish tastes delicious. • The house looks dirty,

!!! *These verbs can be used with an adverb when they refer to an action rather than a state:

• She tasted the dessert appreciatively. • He looked seriously at me.

# Certain other verbs, e.g. sit, lie, stand, fall, become, go, get & turn, can also be followed by adjectives, when the adjective describes the subject:
• I went red with embarrassment. • She fell ill and died.
• The mountain stood powerful and threatening ahead of me.

3. Adjectives can be used in certain expressions with the, when we are generalizing, to indicate a whole group of people:
• the rich, the poor, the old, the disabled, the dead, the unemployed, the blind, the deaf

+ Some adjectives of nationality can also be used like this, including all nationality adjectives ending in -sh or -ch:
• the British, the Spanish, the French

!!! Plural nouns with numbers become singular when they are used as adjectives:
• a ten-mile walk, a three-hour journey

4. The order of adjectives is important where there is more than one adjective in front of a noun.
!!!The following order should generally be observed:
Opinion (how good), size (how big), age (how old), shape, color, origin/nationality, material, type (what kind), purpose (what for) + NOUN

However, some adjectives and nouns are used so often together that the above rule does not apply:
• We drank some delicious Spanish white wine. (NOT * white Spanish wine)

By Dao Ngoc Trung


Exercise 1: complete each sentence with the correct adjective from the
pair in brackets
1 All the guests are fast ____. (asleep/ sleeping)
2 Her mother hated living all_______. (alone/ lone)
3 The firemen had to carry the ____ (afraid/frightened)
4 The salvage teams watched the___ (ablaze/blazing)
5 They can't get to sleep. They're wide________. (awake/ waking)
6 I think I can smell a(n) ______ cigarette in the room, (alight/burning)
7 It's a (n) ______ concert, coming to you via satellite from Rome,
(alive/live)
8 Flies buzzed in through the ______ door, (ajar/open)
9 As soon as we're ______, we'll set sail for France, (afloat/ floating)
Exercise 2: correct the sentences if necessary. Tick any which are
already correct.
1 She turned palely with fear.
2 I felt the bird's wing gently.
3 The boy stood motionless in the corner.
4 This trick seems easy to do, but it isn't.
5 I'm feeling more enthusiastic now you've explained it all to me.
6. He became angrily when he saw what had happened.
7 This pasta tastes garlic
By Dao Ngoc Trung
English for Advanced Practice
8 Don't look at me so resentfully. It wasn't my fault.
9 Your friend Carrie sounds charming.
10 The patient was lying unconsciously on the bed.
Exercise 3: Correct the sentences if necessary. Tick any which are
already correct.
1 The new toilets in town are for the disabled people.
2 It will probably be a two-hours lecture.
3 Dominic works at a special school for blind.
4 The eleven year old girl won first prize.
5 In many societies it is true that the rich gets richer, and the poor gets
poorer.
6 French negotiated with Spanish over the return of the wanted
fugitives.
Exercise 4: Unscramble the following sentences.
1 saw a I silk sweet green little scarf
2 was huge castle a there mediaeval stone hill the on
3 beautiful ship at quay moored white a sailing was the
4 battered is table leather a there old suitcase the on
5 live ancient cottage the sea by they fisherman's in an
6 was her striped bag shopping carrying she canvas a heavy arm full
vegetables of on
7 introduced a handsome executive she to young was remarkably
 English for Advanced Practice
8 wearing smart business a a jazzy suit grey waistcoat he was with 5 You can't expect him to know any better - he's a(n) ______ child.

9 cakes butter the Danish unsalted makes with she only best 6 Overwork and a(n) ______ reading tour of the USA contributed
largely to Charles Dickens' death.
10 an oriental extremely carpet exotic he bought just has
7 Howard Barker is hailed by some as one of our most ______
Exercise 5: Complete the sentences with the correct adjective from the playwrights.
box. Use each word only once.
sworn dire(rất cần thiết) grueling(kiet sức) 8 Police consider the murder as one of the most ______ crimes in
recent years.
blatant(rành rành) mere burgeoning(đâm chồi)
insatiable(tham lam) first-hand innovative primary 9 The island was quite content with its ______ prosperity.
abortive(non yeu) contemporary fierce lucrative(có lợi)
10 From the moment the boys saw each other, they were _____
heinous(tàn ác) enemies.

11 The company is in ______ need of financial assistance.

12 You need to find a(n) _____ market for your products.

13 It is hard for ______ authors to achieve the status of earlier writers

who have become household names.
1 He committed the offence in ________ disregard of the rules.
14 Unemployment is the ______ focus of concern in many people's
2 The children have a(n) ______appetite for sweets.
minds.
3 The company made a(n) ________ finally had to call in the receivers.
15 Josephine's actually worked in the diplomatic service, so she has
______ experience
4 Her father's always been a(n) ______ critic of modern art.

By Dao Ngoc Trung