Idiom Practice
The TIES Gazette – Edition 5

-ed / -ing adjectives

I thought I would continue with the same theme of ‘Adjectives’ after my previous Grammar post about Comparatives and Superlatives in English. I have tried to make this post more communicative with some activities to practice the form. You should write all of your answers on a piece of paper and you can check them at the bottom of the post. Enjoy!

Adjectives ending in -ed & -ing

Quite often in English we can use the same base form for an adjective, but we change the suffix (small word on the end) for different forms. One of these examples would be the adjective Excited or Exciting, which come from the base form Excite (v).

1) Read the following statements and decide which ones you agree with. (Discuss with a friend if someone is with you)

a: Digital TV offers much more than Analogue TV.

b: Social Media Sites such as Facebook are completely safe for children.

c: The only news shown on TV is bad news.


2) Listen to three excerpts of people giving their opinion and match them with either a), b) or c)

1)[play-button:wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Analysis C.mp3]          2)[play-button:wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Analysis A.mp3]          3)[play-button:wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Analysis B.mp3]

Do they agree, partly agree or completely disagree with the statements?


3) Listen again and try to identify which of the following -ed / -ing adjectives the people used in the recording.

4) Read the Analysis task below and answer the questions.

5) Practice by choosing the correct alternative in each of the sentences below:

a) I was so frustrated / frustrating when my bus was late yesterday.

b) It was surprised / surprising to see that the Cowboys lost their match.

c) I am very interested / interesting in learning other languages.

d) These instructions are so frustrated / frustrating.

e) He was so shocked / shocking by my news that he fell off his chair.

Check your answers

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