All sentences in the English language follow a set number of patterns. Your goal in Find the Pattern is to identify those patterns by identifying the parts that make up the sentence. We help you learn to identify the structure and purpose of the sentence and then break down each clause and predicate into its parts. We also help you learn to identify the type of each verb that is used such as whether it's an action or linking verb and that gives you a hint about the parts that can be found in the predicate.

This game has four different levels so you can start out with shorter, easier sentences and work your way up to identifying the patterns in more complex sentences. If you're looking for more of a challenge, you can jump right to a higher level, but if you need more practice, you can stick with the first levels until you feel more confident. See the level descriptions below to find out what you'll work on at each level.

Let's Play!

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At level 1, you're just getting started so we only focus on simple sentences. (Just a reminder: this means those that have one independent clause and no dependent clauses.) The question types you'll encounter are:

Identify Sentence Purpose:

• Declarative Sentence
• Exclamatory Sentence
• Imperative Sentence
• Interrogative Sentence
• Imperative and Exclamatory Sentence

This last type is a combination of two types. It's for sentences like "Let's go!"

Identify Verb Type:

• Action Verb
• Linking Verb
• Transitive Verb
• Intransitive Verb

Identifying the verb type will help you understand what parts there might be in the predicate.

Identify the Subject of the Sentence:

• There may or may not be one, depending on the purpose of the sentence.

Identify the Parts of the Predicate:

• Predicate Adjective
• Predicate Nominative (sometimes called Predicate Noun)
• Direct Object
• Indirect Object
• Adjective Object Complement
• (We'll get to the Noun Object Complements at level 2)

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At level 2, the sentences will be more complicated, so you'll practice identifying the structure of the sentence and then break down the parts for each clause. The sentences still won't be that complex though. You'll answer questions about:

Identify Sentence Structure:

• Simple Sentence
• Complex Sentence
• Compound Sentence
• Compound/Complex Sentence

Identify Sentence Purpose:

• This will be the same as level 1.

Identify Verb Type:

• This will also be the same as level 1.

Clause Questions:

• Identify each independent clause in the sentence.
• Identify the dependent clause, if there is one.
• Identify the subject of each clause, if there is one.
• Determine if a clause has a compound predicate or not.

At this level, the sentences may have an adjective or adverb dependent clause, but they won't have a noun dependent clause yet.

Predicate Questions:

• Identify each predicate including those that are part of a compound predicate.
• Identify the parts of the predicate, just as in level 1.
• Identify noun object complements, in addition to all the other parts.

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At level 3, the sentence complexity will increase again and there may be more than one dependent clause. In addition, we'll stop asking you to identify the verb type, so that can make it more challenging to determine the parts of each predicate. You'll have practice with that at the lower levels, though, so we figure you've got plenty of experience with that by this point. You'll answer questions about:

Sentence Structure:

• We'll still ask you to identify the structure since that helps you to know how to break down the sentence.

Clause Questions:

• Mostly the same questions as level 2.
• Identify all dependent clauses by type, if they exist. There may be more than one!
• Noun dependent clauses will be included.

Predicate Questions:

• This will be the same as level 2.

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At this top level, the sentences will have the most complexity and they may have more than one dependent clause of the same type. The question types will be the same as level 3, other than identifying more than one of the same dependent clause type where necessary.