20 grammar questions to sharpen your English writing and communication

Good grammar is invisible — readers only notice it when it's wrong. Whether you're writing emails, essays, reports, or social media posts, solid grammar builds credibility and makes your communication clearer. This 20-question English grammar quiz tests the rules that matter most in professional and academic writing.

Who Is This Quiz For?

This quiz is designed for:

• ESL/EFL learners wanting to test their English proficiency
• Students preparing for IELTS, TOEFL, SAT Writing, or GCSE English
• Professionals who want to sharpen their business writing
• Anyone who has ever wondered whether to use "who" or "whom"

What's Tested

✍️ Punctuation (5 questions)

• Comma splices and when to use semicolons
• Apostrophes for possession vs contraction (its vs it's)
• Colon and dash usage
• Oxford comma

🔤 Grammar Rules (5 questions)

• Subject-verb agreement
• Pronoun-antecedent agreement
• Dangling and misplaced modifiers
• Parallel structure

⏰ Verb Tenses (5 questions)

• Simple, continuous, perfect, and perfect continuous tenses
• Common errors with past perfect
• Conditional sentences (first, second, third conditional)

📝 Word Choice (5 questions)

• Commonly confused words: affect/effect, fewer/less, lay/lie, who/whom
• Active vs passive voice
• Redundancy and wordiness

Common Grammar Mistakes This Quiz Covers

Comma splice: "I went to the store, I bought milk." ❌ → "I went to the store. I bought milk." or "I went to the store, and I bought milk." ✓

Its vs It's: "The dog wagged it's tail." ❌ → "The dog wagged its tail." ✓ (it's = it is; its = belonging to it)

Who vs Whom: "Who did you speak to?" ❌ (informal but accepted) → "To whom did you speak?" ✓ (whom = object pronoun, like him/her)

Fewer vs Less: "There are less people here today." ❌ → "There are fewer people here today." ✓ (fewer = countable nouns; less = uncountable)

Scoring & Interpretation

| Score | What It Means | |---|---| | 18–20 | 🏆 Grammar Expert — near-native precision | | 14–17 | ✅ Strong Communicator — minor gaps only | | 10–13 | 📚 Functional — focus on your weakest category | | 6–9 | 📖 Developing — systematic study recommended | | 0–5 | 🌱 Beginner — start with the fundamentals |

After completing the quiz you'll see a breakdown by category — so you'll know immediately whether to focus on punctuation, tenses, or word choice.

Practice Makes Perfect

Grammar improves through consistent reading and writing, not just study. After taking this quiz:

• Review the rules behind every question you missed
• Practice with one writing exercise per day (a short email, journal entry, or paragraph)
• Re-take the quiz after two weeks to measure your improvement

Hearify tracks your score history, so you can see your progress over time.