Try It: Verbs

This activity is not graded. The text fields below are purely for self-reflection; you do not need to submit anything for this assignment.

Categorize

Look at the bolded verbs in the following paragraphs, and identify each as an active verb, a linking verb, or a helping verb. (Note: Gerunds, participles, and infinitives have not been bolded.) Record your answers in the text frame below

an illustration of what these large, long-necked dinosaurs may have looked like.

Several macronarian sauropods; from left to right, Camarasaurus, Brachiosaurus, Giraffatitan, and Euhelopus.

In terms of iconic dinosaurs, the gargantuan sauropods are certainly up there. Sauropods form one of the three major groups of dinosaurs (along with the mostly meat eating-theropods and the herbivorous ornithischians), and they were the biggest animals to ever walk this Earth.

The end of the Jurassic period, some 145 million years ago, was a pretty important time for sauropods. Their diversity was already in decline through some of the latter part of the Jurassic, but it seems that they were hit pretty badly at the Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary in an extinction event that may have been quite severe among land- and marine-dwelling animals.

Agreement

Read through the paragraph below and select the verbs that agree in each sentence:

It (was/were) previously thought that diplodocids, a group of sauropods with narrow teeth, went extinct at the Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary, along with other sauropods. Other sauropod groups—such as rebbachisaurids and titanosauriforms—(seems/seem) to (has/have) been unaffected at the Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary. This group-based selectivity of extinction (suggests/suggest) that there (was/were) a degree of targeting in extinction across the boundary, possibly as a result of different feeding styles or different environments which the different sauropods lived in at the time.

Non-Finite Clauses

Identify if each sentence uses a gerund, participle, or infinitive. Record your answers in the text frame below:

  1. Having lost the race, Karen felt as if she had also lost all hope.
  2. Levi wanted to win.
  3. Losing is not an option.
  4. The other team was beaten by us.
  5. The team beaten by us were bad sports about it.