QUESTIONS –WORD ORDER

In general terms, in order to make a direct question, we simply need to invert the subject and the auxiliary (be, have, etc.) or the modal verb (can, could, should, etc.). If there is not a modal or an auxiliary verb in the sentence, we use ‘do/does’ with the present or ‘did’ with the past. Remember that we also have INDIRECT QUESTIONS with a special kind of construction which you can study in a previous unit. In this section, we will go over three other important types of questions: SUBJECT, COMPLEMENT, AND NEGATIVE QUESTIONS.

When we ask about the subject of a sentence with question words such as who, what, which, how much  or how many is because we do not know the doer of the action. In these cases, we DO NOT use /do/does/did/ after the question word. We only use the pattern: WH + VERB+ COMPLEMENT. Here are some examples.

• WHO drove  Karen to school yesterday?
• WHICH TEAM won the contest?
• WHAT makes you unhappy?
• HOW MANY PEOPLE passed the Certification exam?
• WHO usually helps you with your homework?
• WHAT has been your happiest student experience?
• WHICH STUDENT competed against Michael?

When we ask about the person or the object that receives the action of the verb in a  sentence, we need to use a complement-question. We will use the question words who and what. This is  because we do not know the receiver of the action. In these cases, we use the regular pattern:

WH + AUX (is/are/do /does  /did /have/had) + SUBJECT +  VERB +  COMPLEMENT.

Many times these questions end in a preposition.  We have to put the preposition at the end of the question (after the verb or after verb + object if there is an object). Note that ‘somebody’ is an unknown person in the complement. Here are some examples:

A: Mandy loves somebody.  

B: WHO does Mandy love?

A: Axel is talking to somebody.

B: WHO is he talking TO?

A: Pamela lives with somebody.

B: WHO does she live WITH?

A: Jeff left a message for somebody.

B: WHO did he leave a message FOR?

A: I talked to Mr. Lee about something.

B: WHAT did you talk to him ABOUT?

A: Alexander gave his sister money for something.

B: WHAT did he  give her money FOR?

We use negative questions to indicate the speakers’ attitude of surprise, sock, anger or annoyance.  We also use negative questions to specify a speaker’s idea or belief, whether something is true or not. For instance:

• What are you doing here? Aren´t you supposed to be at the university now?
• Didn’t you like the concert? I thought it was awesome!
• Haven’t you finished your project yet? The deadline is tomorrow!
• Why are you watching TV now? Don’t you have work to do?
• What´s the matter with you? Didn´t you study?

Note that when we use a negative question without the contracted form of the verb, we should use a full negative  “NOT” after the subject.

• Did you NOT see the stop sign?
• Have they NOT visited their parents yet?

READING COMPREHENSION AND VOCABULARY BUILDING

CHILD OF SLAVERY WHO TAUGHT A GENERATION

By Karen Grigsby Bates 2015

(I)  Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (1858-1964) was an American author, educator, prominent scholar, and one of the first black women to earn a doctoral degree in the United States history. Before that, she headed the first public high school for black students in the District of Columbia — Washington Colored High School. It later became known as the M Street School and was eventually renamed for black poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. A steady stream of superbly qualified students flowed from this school, largely because of the vision of one educator. Cooper insistently pushed to make sure her students had an academically focused curriculum that would put it on par with the best white private schools. She knew it could be done because she had her own life as a powerful example. Anna Julia Haywood was born in 1858 in North Carolina to her enslaved mother, Hannah Stanley Haywood, and the white man who owned them both. She was an avid learner, first at the Episcopal-run private school she attended while at home, and later as a stellar student at Oberlin College in Ohio. There, she would earn both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees normally offered to male students.

(II) Education as the Portal to Progress

Shortly after graduating, Cooper moved to Washington and began the work she would be known for, at the school that would become Dunbar. She insisted that her students be exposed to classic literature and foreign languages. Math was not just sums, but advanced mathematics. She resisted giving in to the District’s all-white, all-male Board of Education, which wanted the school to teach the students vocational skills, feeling those were more practical. Cooper’s insistence on an academic education for her students was not a diss of vocational work, She thought that was fine and admirable, but not at the expense of helping these Negro and colored students be all that they could be intellectually. At the time, activist W.E.B. Du Bois maintained that the “talented tenth” of the race should be the ones who would lead black America to its place alongside — not behind — its white peers. Washington, another educator, ever- conscious that slavery had only recently ended, wanted to concentrate on the other 90 percent, who would need jobs to feed and clothe their families. Domestic work and skilled manual labor would do that. Cooper was friends with both men but knew the time would come when black citizens would be allowed to contribute to the country’s growth. So she educated her students so well that they could not be denied. And it worked: Less than 50 years after the conclusion of the Civil War, Dunbar students went to schools like Harvard, Mount Holyoke and Brown. And they weren’t all from elite backgrounds. Cooper was aware that some students might need more help than others. Students from poor families, who’d grown up with little previous access to education, might need more time for tests or a longer deadline for schoolwork.

(III)  Success Creates Scandal

But being willing to do that came at a terrible personal cost. A scandal was ginned up against her and brought to the local press, accusing her of having a sexual affair with her young adult foster son. The young man was one of five siblings Cooper began raising when her brother had died suddenly years before. Prominent people came forward to testify for Anna Cooper’s impeccable morals. Nevertheless, the rumors remained on the front pages of the local papers for months. Eventually, Cooper was forced to resign her principal’s post. She moved to Paris, enrolled at the Sorbonne, and, at age 66, became the fourth black woman in the U.S. to receive a Ph.D. Her dissertation, in French, was on attitudes toward slavery after the Haitian rebellion. Eventually Cooper returned to Washington and to Dunbar as a teacher. And in her classroom, rigor reigned. She retired in 1930 and would remain active — and an activist — on educational and racial matters for several more years. She died in 1964 at age 105.

(IV)  A Lasting Legacy

Many of the things that Anna Cooper practiced a century ago were considered radical in her day, but are common now, such as eschewing IQ tests,  acknowledging that children’s performance at school is impacted by their home lives and  giving students with special needs extra time to complete tests and papers. Today she’s considered one of the most important figures in American education. Important enough that in 2009, the U.S. Postal Service honored Anna J. Cooper by issuing a stamp with her likeness on it.

Cambridge University Press. (2015). Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Fourth Edition.

Eastwood, J. (2019). Oxford Practice Grammar. Intermediate. Oxford University Press.

Hewings, M. (2013) Advanced Grammar in Use with Answers: A Self-Study Reference  and Practice Book for Advanced Learners of English. CUP

Murray, L. (2014) English Grammar.  Cambridge University Press.

Swan, M & Walter, C. (2016). Oxford English Grammar Course. Intermediate. Oxford University Press.

Images_Compra propia de licencias de banco de imágenes de Pixton y Pngtree, exentas de derechos de autor. https://www-es.pixton.com/ & https://es.pngtree.com/free-backgrounds.

Reading Text retrieved and adapted from  https://www.commonlit.org/es/texts/a-child-of-slavery-who-taught-a-generation_©2015 National Public Radio, Inc. News report titled "A Child Of Slavery Who Taught A Generation" was originally broadcast on NPR's Morning Edition on March 12, 2015. Unless otherwise noted, this content is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license

• All practice exercises and charts were  written by Connie Reyes Cruz_2022_ENES- LEÓN-UNAM
• Audio version performed by Kimberly, Isabella, John and Matt_Compra propia de licencia de uso de voces en Voicemaker, exenta de derechos de autor. https://voicemaker.in/ _Connie Reyes Cruz_2022_