Clauses and Phrases

Clauses can be independent or dependent. A clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate AND is used as part of a sentence. An independent clause expresses a complete thought, e.g. 'He tore the page in half'. Thus, an independent clause could stand alone exactly like a sentence. On the other hand, 'whenever he heard it' is a dependent clause: it can't stand alone because it doesn't represent a complete thought. A phrase is a group of two or more connected words which does not contain a subject and predicate, e.g. 'the girl', terrible weather' 'the enemy having lost'. In this 11-plus English quiz, you are going to get some practice in dealing with phrases and clauses. A sentence is a collection of words that expresses a complete thought. In order to express a complete thought, the sentence must have a subject and predicate: the predicate is that part of the sentence that contains a verb and states something about the subject, e.g. in 'Peter fell over', 'Peter' is the subject and 'fell over' is the predicate. The predicate verb is 'fell'. Here's a useful tip: a phrase is neither a sentence nor a clause.