eng5-5.3· Unit 5: Words & Questions· ~13 min

Question words

what, where, who, when, how, how many.

Question words help us ask for specific information. In English, the most common question words at this level are: What (asks about a thing or idea), Where (asks about a place), Who (asks about a person), Whose (asks about ownership or possession), When (asks about time), How (asks about manner or condition), and How many (asks about a number of countable things). Each question word is matched to the type of answer you expect. If you want to know about a person, use Who; if you want to know about a place, use Where. Questions with these words usually follow the pattern: Question word + auxiliary verb (do/does/is/are) + subject + main verb. Short answers use the same auxiliary. For example: 'Where is your school?' — 'It is near the park.'

Rules

  1. 1Use 'What' to ask about a thing or object: What is this? — It is a pen.
  2. 2Use 'Where' to ask about a place: Where are you? — I am at school.
  3. 3Use 'Who' to ask about a person, and 'Whose' to ask about possession: Who is she? — She is my teacher. Whose bag is this? — It is Ali's bag.
  4. 4Use 'When' to ask about time: When is the lesson? — It is at nine o'clock.
  5. 5Use 'How' to ask about manner or condition, and 'How many' to ask about the number of countable nouns: How are you? — Fine, thanks. How many cats do you have? — I have three.

Practice

10 easy · 10 medium · 10 hard

10 random questions per test