The Five Jobs a Sentence Can Do

Every sentence has a job. There are five jobs, and once you know them, you will never be confused by a question about sentence types again.

Job one, the statement. It tells you something: the bus is late. Job two, the question. It asks: is the bus late? Job three, the command. It tells you to do something: wait here.

Job four, the exclamation. Strong feeling, and it ends with an exclamation mark: the bus is on fire! Job five, the explanation. It tells how or why: the bus is late because of the rain.

Look closely. Close the door, full stop: a command. Close the door, question mark: now it is a surprised question. The words did not change. The mark changed the job.

Try this one. Please put your books away. It asks you to do something, so it is a command. Polite commands are still commands.

So: you can name all five sentence types, match each one to its end mark, and write your own examples. Let's check that in the quiz.