1.    What are Question Tags ?

• Question tags are short questions at the end of the statements. They are formed with the auxiliary or modal verb from the statement and the appropriate subject.

E.g.

It is beautiful, isn’t it ?

He finished his tests, didn’t he ?

2.    Positive Statement

• A positive statement is followed by a negative tag.

E.g.

Mary can swim, can’t she ?

Positive Statement	Negative Tag
are	aren’t
is	isn’t
was	wasn’t
were	weren’t
do	don’t
did	didn’t
have	haven’t
had	hadn’t
would	won’t
can	can’t
could	couldn’t
must	mustn’t
should	shouldn’t
would	wouldn’t

• If the sentence starts with “Let’s”, then “shall” should be used in the question tag.

E.g.  Let’s go to the movies, shall we ?

3.    Negative Statement

• A negative statement is followed by a positive tag.

E.g.  The cakes aren’t delicious, are they ?

Negative Statement	Positive Tag
aren’t	are
isn’t	is
wasn’t	was
weren’t	were
don’t	do
didn’t	did
haven’t	have
hadn’t	had
won’t	would
can’t	can
couldn’t	could
mustn’t	must
shouldn’t	should
wouldn’t	would

• Be careful of statements with “barely, hardly, neither, no, nobody, none, nothing, seldom”. They are to be considered as negative statements.

E.g.

Nobody is interested to swim, are they ?

Nothing is free in this world, is it ?

4.    When the verb in the sentence is in the present tense, “do/don’t/does/doesn’t” would be used in the question tag.

E.g.

Mary swims, doesn’t she ?

Mary does not swim, does she ?

You swim, don’t you ?

You don't swim, do you ?

5.    When the verb in the sentence is in the past tense, “did/didn’t”  would be used in the question tag.

E.g.

Mary went to the movies, didn’t she ?

Mary did not go to the movies, did she ?

6.   PSLE 

You might be interested to know that question tags had been set for the below PSLE papers.

PSLE Year	Grammer Question
2012	“The tennis players have been informed about the match, _____ ?” asked the coach1) aren’t they2) hadn’t they3) weren’t they4) haven’t they
2014	“She’s left the room for some time, ____ ?” I asked.1) isn’t she2) didn’t she3) hasn’t she4) wasn’t she

 

---

 

Want all the previous and subsequent Grammar Rules all consolidated in 1 single post? 

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive all 12 Grammar Rules in one neat package in time to revise with your child before SA1.

Subscribe here.