Six Parts of Speech That Make TOEFL Reading Easier
Parts of Speech (Word Category)
In English grammar, parts of speech refer to categories of words. They are often divided into the following nine groups:
- Noun (e.g., dog)
- Verb (e.g., run)
- Adjective (e.g., fluffy)
- Adverb (e.g., fast)
- Article (e.g., a/an/the)
- Pronoun (e.g., it)
- Preposition (e.g., in)
- Conjunction (e.g., and)
- Interjection (e.g., wow!)
Memorizing all of them may seem overwhelming, and in fact, it can be. Fortunately, if your goal is to improve your TOEFL performance, you don’t need to master every category in detail at the beginning. It’s more practical to understand that these categories exist and then focus on the ones that are especially important for reading and writing.
In this article, we will focus on the following six parts of speech and explain how understanding them can make TOEFL Reading easier:
- Noun
- Verb
- Adjective
- Adverb
- Preposition
- Conjunction
Content Words and Function Words
Before we explore each word category, it is useful to understand two broad groups of words: content words and function words.
- Content words have clear, imageable meaning on their own. In the list of parts of speech above, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are considered content words. Understanding content words often helps you grasp the basic meaning of a sentence.
- Function words, on the other hand, mainly serve grammatical roles. They include words such as articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and pronouns. These words may not carry as much independent meaning as content words, but they are still important because they show how words and ideas are connected in a sentence.
Distinguishing content words from function words is important when reading a sentence because, even if you encounter difficult grammar, focusing on content words can help you understand at least the main idea expressed in the sentence.
Noun
A noun is one of the most well-known parts of speech. Words in this category name people, animals, objects, places, ideas, and concepts. For example, “democracy,” “mathematics,” “Americans,” and “cats” are all nouns.
Because nouns are relatively easy to define, they may seem like one of the easiest parts of speech to understand. However, nouns play an especially important grammatical role: they can serve as the subject of a sentence.
Subjects Must Be Nouns or Noun-Like Elements
Understanding this rule is important for both reading and writing. In reading, identifying the subject helps you understand the structure of a sentence, especially when the sentence is long or complex. In writing, making sure that the subject is a noun or a noun-like element can help you avoid ungrammatical sentences.
In many English sentences, the subject appears near the beginning of the sentence. However, you should not simply choose the first noun you see. Instead, you need to find the main noun or noun phrase that controls the main verb.
Take a look at the following sentence. It becomes easier to understand once you identify the main subject.
The discovery of ancient tools in the cave, along with several pieces of burned wood and animal bones, suggests that humans may have lived in the area much earlier than previously believed.
At first glance, this sentence may look difficult because a long noun phrase appears before the main verb. However, once you identify the subject, the sentence becomes much easier to understand.
In this sentence, the main subject is “The discovery of ancient tools in the cave.” The phrase “along with several pieces of burned wood and animal bones” adds extra information, but it’s not the main subject.
- Subject: “The discovery (of ancient tools in the cave)”
- Main verb: “suggests”
- Object: “that humans may have lived in the area much earlier than previously believed”
This analysis allows you to reconstruct the simpler sentence structure.
The discovery suggests that humans may have lived there earlier.
This shows why identifying the subject is important in reading. Even if a sentence contains long modifiers or inserted phrases, you can understand the main idea more easily by finding the subject and the main verb first.
Verb
Verb represents an action or state of being. Understanding the main verb in a sentence is extremely important because, depending on the type of a verb, what comes after the verb varies. For example, if an intransitive verb is used in a sentence, the sentence must be in the structure SV (Subject-Verb). Similarly, if a verb is the one with unimageable action, we can assume that the sentence is in the form SVC (Subject-Verb-Complement).
If you are interested in transitive-intransitive verb distinction, and sentence construction (SV, SVC, SVO, SVOO, and SVOC), please take time reading the following article as well.
“Verb” as a Part of Speech and as a Sentence Component
It is important to distinguish between “verb” as a part of speech and “verb” as a sentence component.
As a word category, “verb” refers to verb words themselves. For example, “run,” “sleep,” “increase,” and “discuss” are all verbs. As a sentence component, however, “verb” usually refers to the main verb of a sentence. This concept is important because, in most complete sentences, the subject and the main verb form the core structure of the sentence.
In English, many words and phrases outside the main subject and main verb add extra information. They may describe time, place, reason, condition, or detail. However, when reading a long sentence, identifying the main subject and the main verb first can make the sentence much easier to understand.
Take a look at the following sentence:
The rapid spread of online learning platforms during the pandemic, despite concerns about student motivation and unequal access to technology, revealed how quickly educational institutions could adapt to unexpected challenges.
This sentence is long and may seem difficult at first. However, once you identify its core components, it becomes much easier to read.
- Subject: “The rapid spread (of online learning platforms during the pandemic)”
- Main verb: “revealed”
- Content: “how quickly educational institutions could adapt to unexpected challenges”
Based on this analysis, we can simplify the sentence as follows:
The rapid spread revealed how quickly educational institutions could adapt to unexpected challenges.
Obviously, this shorter version is easier to understand than the original sentence. However, the core meaning remains almost the same. This shows why identifying the subject and the main verb is so useful in reading: it helps you separate the main structure from additional details.
Adjective
Grammatically, adjectives are commonly used in the following two ways:
- serving as a complement (C) in an SVC sentence
- modifying a noun
Although adjectives are also considered content words, they often provide additional information rather than forming the core structure of a sentence. This is especially true when an adjective simply adds descriptive information to a noun.
For instance, take a look at the following sentence:
I bought a small notebook yesterday.
In this sentence, the adjective “small” modifies the noun “notebook” by adding information about its size. However, if we remove the adjective, the core structure of the sentence remains the same:
I bought a notebook yesterday.
The sentence becomes less specific, but the main idea is still clear.
Likewise, when you encounter an adjective you don’t know, you may sometimes be able to ignore it temporarily, especially if the adjective is simply adding descriptive information to a noun. This can help you understand the basic structure of the sentence first.
This is one strategy you can use when you encounter an unfamiliar adjective.
Adverb
Roughly speaking, adverbs can be divided into two broad types:
- descriptive adverbs
- conjunctive adverbs, also called transition words
Descriptive Adverbs
Descriptive adverbs usually modify a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or even an entire clause. In other words, they add information about how, when, where, or to what degree something happens. However, in many cases, they add descriptive detail rather than forming the core grammatical structure or carrying the main message of the sentence.
For example, if we say, “He is walking furiously,” the adverb “furiously” modifies the verb phrase “is walking.” It tells us how he is walking. The main action is still walking, but the adverb adds extra information about the manner of the action.
Although descriptive adverbs can make a sentence more specific, they often do not form the core structure of the sentence. For instance, even if we remove “furiously” from the example sentence, we still have the main structure:
He is walking.
This shows that “furiously” adds descriptive detail, while “he is walking” carries the core meaning of the sentence. If the writer wanted to make the emotion itself the main point, a sentence such as “He is angry” would express that more directly.
As you see in this example, some adverbs can be ignored temporarily if they simply add descriptive detail to a sentence. This approach is especially useful when you encounter an unfamiliar adverb. In many cases, ignoring such an adverb has little effect on the overall meaning or grammatical structure of the sentence.
However, there are also adverbs that you should pay close attention to. The following list shows adverbs that can dramatically change the meaning of a sentence.
Descriptive Adverbs That You Should Not Remove
Some adverbs may look small, but they can strongly affect the meaning of a sentence. These adverbs should not be ignored because they change the degree, frequency, or truth of the statement.
Common examples include the following:
- hardly
- barely
- rarely
- completely
- always
Remember that adverbs such as “hardly,” “barely,” and “rarely” can greatly change the meaning of a sentence. If you ignore these adverbs, you may misunderstand the sentence completely. Here is an example:
She rarely eats breakfast.
If you remove “rarely,” the sentence becomes “she eats breakfast.” This revised sentence simply states that she eats breakfast. However, the original sentence means that she almost never eats breakfast. In other words, “rarely” changes the sentence from a general statement about eating breakfast into a statement about very low frequency. Similar effects can also be seen with adverbs such as “barely” and “hardly,” because they strongly limit the meaning of the verb or statement that follows.
The same is true of “completely” and “always.”
The theory is completely wrong.
If you remove “completely,” the sentence becomes “The theory is wrong.” This revised sentence still expresses a negative judgment, but it is weaker than the original. The original sentence means that the theory is wrong in a total or absolute way. In other words, “completely” changes the sentence from a general negative statement into a much stronger one.
The theory is wrong.
This sentence simply states that the theory is wrong. It doesn’t tell us whether the theory is entirely wrong or only partly wrong.
Conjunctive Adverbs
Conjunctive adverbs, often used as transition words, help clarify the relationship between one sentence and the previous sentence. Common conjunctive adverbs include the following:
- However
- Nevertheless
- Therefore
- Consequently
- Moreover
One important grammatical point about conjunctive adverbs is that they can’t connect two independent clauses by themselves in the same way that conjunctions can.
For example, the coordinating conjunction “and” can join two independent clauses into one sentence:
I have a dog, and it always barks.
In this sentence, the two independent clauses, “I have a dog” and “it always barks,” are connected by the conjunction “and.” Conjunctive adverbs can’t do this by themselves. Since they are adverbs, not conjunctions, they can’t grammatically join two independent clauses with only a comma.
The sentence below shows a common error made by both native and non-native English speakers.
× I like cats, however I don’t like dogs.
This sentence is ungrammatical because “however” is being used as if it were the conjunction “but.” A comma alone is not enough to connect the two independent clauses.
Preposition
Unlike nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, prepositions are function words. They mainly serve grammatical purposes and usually carry little clear meaning on their own. The following are common prepositions:
- in
- on
- at
- above
- despite
- with
- through
- beyond
For example, if someone says only “beyond” without any context, it’s difficult to understand exactly what they mean. This is because a preposition usually needs to be connected to another word or phrase to express a clear relationship.
Prepositions are grammatically important because they show relationships such as place, direction, time, contrast, or limitation. However, their meaning often becomes clear only when they are used with other words.
Prepositions Are Always Followed by Noun or Gerund
One important rule about prepositions is that they must be followed by one of the following:
- a noun
- a noun phrase
- a gerund
- a gerund phrase
A gerund is a noun-like form made by adding “-ing” to a verb. When an “-ing” form is used as a gerund, it doesn’t function as the main verb of the sentence. Instead, it functions like a noun.
If you place something other than a noun, noun phrase, gerund, or gerund phrase after a preposition, the sentence mostly becomes ungrammatical.
For example, the following sentence is grammatically incorrect:
× I look forward to see you.
In this sentence, “to” is a preposition because it’s part of the fixed expression “look forward to.” Therefore, it must be followed by a noun, noun phrase, gerund, or gerund phrase. However, “see” is the base form of a verb. Since a base-form verb cannot directly follow a preposition, the sentence is ungrammatical.
To make the sentence correct, we need to use a gerund:
I look forward to seeing you.
Here, “seeing” is a gerund. Although it is formed from the verb “see,” it functions like a noun after the preposition “to.” This is why “look forward to seeing you” is grammatical, while “look forward to see you” is not.
Here is another example:
× She is used to live in a cold climate.
This sentence is incorrect because “to” in “be used to” is also a preposition. It cannot be followed directly by the base-form verb “live.” The correct sentence is the one below:
She is used to living in a cold climate.
In this sentence, “living in a cold climate” is a gerund phrase. It functions like a noun after the preposition “to.”
When you use “to,” you must be careful whether the “to” is used as a preposition or a part of to-infinitive structure. If you are unsure about this grammar, please take time reading the following article as well.
Conjunctions
Conjunctions are words that connect words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. In this article, we will focus mainly on two types of conjunctions:
| Type | Function | Common Examples | Basic Usage | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coordinating Conjunctions | Connect words, phrases, or independent clauses of equal grammatical importance | and, but, or, so, for, nor, yet | Often used to join two independent clauses with a comma | I had to finish my homework, so I stayed up late. |
| Subordinating Conjunctions | Connect a dependent clause to an independent clause | because, although, if, when, while, since, unless | Used to show relationships such as cause, contrast, condition, or time | Although I was tired, I kept studying. |
Coordinating conjunctions are often remembered with the acronym FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. These conjunctions can connect two independent clauses. When a coordinating conjunction joins two independent clauses, a comma is usually placed before the conjunction.
I wanted to go outside, but it started to rain.
In this sentence, “I wanted to go outside” and “it started to rain” are both independent clauses. The coordinating conjunction “but” connects them into one sentence.
Subordinating conjunctions, such as “because,” “although,” “when,” and “if,” work differently. They introduce a dependent clause. A dependent clause cannot stand alone as a complete sentence, so it needs to be connected to an independent clause.
For example, “because” is a commonly used subordinating conjunction. Let’s take a closer look at how it connects ideas in a sentence.
I went to bed early because I was tired.
This sentence has two parts:
- Independent clause: “I went to bed early”
- Dependent clause: “because I was tired”
The independent clause “I went to bed early” can stand alone as a complete sentence. By contrast, the dependent clause “because I was tired” can’t. If someone says only “because I was tired,” the listener naturally expects more information.
This shows an important point about subordinating conjunctions. The word “because” doesn’t simply connect two independent clauses. Instead, it turns “I was tired” into a dependent clause that explains the reason for the main action.
Also, remember that unlike coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions don’t require a comma before them when the dependent clause comes after the main clause.
