Using Verbs
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Review: Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

Identify whether the underlined verb or compound verb is used transitively or intransitively:


  1. The old woman struggled up the hill, pulling a grocery cart that had lost one wheel behind her.

    1. transitive verb
    2. intransitive verb

  2. Hermione is editing her uncle's memoirs of his lifetime as a green grocer.

    1. transitive verb
    2. intransitive verb

  3. Much to the amusement of the onlookers, Paul danced a minuet to the polka music that drifted out of the beer tent.

    1. transitive verb
    2. intransitive verb

  4. At the beginning of the play, the entire cast dances manically across the stage.

    1. transitive verb
    2. intransitive verb

  5. Stella is reading quietly in the upstairs bedroom instead of doing her chores.

    1. transitive verb
    2. intransitive verb

  6. This term I am reading all of the works of Sylvia Townsend Warner.

    1. transitive verb
    2. intransitive verb

  7. At the feast, we will eat heartily.

    1. transitive verb
    2. intransitive verb

  8. Charles opened up his lunch, examined the contents carefully, and ate his dessert first.

    1. transitive verb
    2. intransitive verb

  9. The Stephens sisters are both very talented; Virginia writes and Vanessa paints.

    1. transitive verb
    2. intransitive verb

  10. When I was three years old, my father left a can of paint open in my bedroom, and early one morning, I painted my baby brother's face green.

    1. transitive verb
    2. intransitive verb

Written by Heather MacFadyen

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Last updated: 2007.08.16