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WH-QUESTIONS PRACTICE

In order to communicate in English it is vital to be able to ask questions correctly. Revise the rules below, then do the exercises.

RULES:

1. Begin your question with an auxiliary if you want to ask a yes/no question:
   
   Do you speak English?
   
   
2. Begin your question with a wh-word if you need more specific information:
   
   How long have you studied English?
   
   
3. Learn the wh- words. A good way is to memorise a question with each of them. Translate these examples into Spanish:
   
   

   Where do you come from? When is your birthday? What time is it? / What is your favourite colour? ¹ Which shirt did you like most? / Which did you buy? ¹ Why are you crying? Who is your best friend? Whose is this book? How are you? What is your teacher like? What does your English friend look like? What does your friend like to read? How much is this, please? How many brothers and sisters have you got? How old are you? How often do you play football? How long have you lived here? How far is London from here? How fast is a Ferrari? How rich is the Queen of England? How difficult was the exam?

   ¹ In Spanish, we use "qué" or "cuál" depending on whether or not there is a noun after the wh- word: ¿Qué pescado prefieres? ¿Cuál prefieres? NOT *¿Cuál pescado prefieres? We also use "qué" for the more general questions: ¿Qué quieres comer hoy? In English, people use "what" for general questions, and "which" for questions about choosing from a few options: What do you want for dinner today? Which fish do you prefer? Which do you prefer?

4. Pay attention to word order in questions:
   
   
   • If the verb is BE, use it as an auxiliary: Aux + S:
     
     
     Where are my keys?
     Who was your English teacher last year?
     
     
   • When the wh- word is not the subject, use this word order: Aux + S + V:
     
     
     Where do you live?
     How many people did the committee choose?
     
     
   • When the wh- word is the subject, use the same structure as in an affirmative sentence:
     
     
   
   

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EXERCISES:

Exercise 1.

Identify the wh- word that you need to ask a question that refers to the underlined words in these sentences. Think of the question you would need to ask in Spanish to get that information repeated:

Example: The mass of this planet is eleven times the mass of Jupiter.
Question in Spanish: ¿Cuál es la masa de este planeta?
Wh- word in English: What...? (because it is a general question, not because it means "cuál").


1. Observation of star HD 106906 began in 2005.
2. This star is 300 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Crux.
3. There is only one planet orbiting this star, HD 106906 b.
4. Vanessa Bailey was the leader of an international team of astronomers.
5. They detailed the discovery of the planet HD 106906 b in 2013.
6. They think the system is around 13 million years old.
7. This planet is interesting because it is very far from its sun.
8. In fact, it is 60 billion miles from its star, which is more than twenty times as far as Neptune is from the Sun.
9. Its surface temperature is 1,500º C.
10. The findings were published on an online journal, arXiv.
11. Seven thousand papers were published in arXiv every month in 2012.
12. Scientists usually send their papers in .pdf format.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_106906_b
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArXiv

Click on the dictionary below to correct your answers before you do exercise 2.




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Exercise 2.

Now write the full questions.

Then click on the dictionary below to correct exercise 2.




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Exercise 3.

Choose a topic that interests you and find some information about it in the wikipedia or some other reliable source of information. Make a list of sentences and underline parts of these sentences as in exercise 1. Give your sentences to your teacher for correction.