Question Tags with the Verb “am”

Objective: Construct question tags with the verb “am” Prerequisite: Basic rules of forming question tags. There are three basic rules in forming question tags. 1) When the sentence is positive, the question tag will be negative. 2) When the sentence is negative, the question tag will be positive. 3) Use the auxiliary verb in the statement to form the question tag. We will start our lesson by looking at negative sentences. Give the correct question tags for the following sentences. 1) I am not reading. 2) I am not playing. 3) I am not sleeping. 4) I am not resting. Now let us find out how you fared with the exercise. 1) I am not reading, am I? 2) I am not playing, am I? 3) I am not sleeping, am I? 4) I am not resting, am I? Try your hand and make your own sentences. You can borrow mine from the previous lesson but make sure you turn them into negative sentences first. Now let us look at positive sentences. This does provide a problem. The auxiliary verb in our sentences will be “am”. But what is the negative of am. We saw that in the sentences above we used am not. Question tags are made using the contracted (shortened) form of an auxiliary verb. You naturally will be tempted to use amn’t I? This is wrong. The correct negative tag is aren’t I? Aren’t (pronounced ant) We are now good to go, aren’t we? Give the correct question tag for the following sentences. 1) I am ill. 2) I am happy. 3) I am sad. 4) I am angry. 5) I am clean. 6) I am dirty. 7) I am hungry. 8) I am satisfied. 9) I am thirsty. 10) I am tired. Well, I will supply the answers to the first three items just to give you confidence that you are on the right track. 1) I am ill, aren’t I? 2) I am happy, aren’t I? 3) I am sad, aren’t I?