🏹 Grammar B1-29: Question tags: complex

The twenty-ninth material of the Fleydo B1 grammar series, and the sequel to B1-19: the three-step tag machine — find the helper, flip the polarity, end with a pronoun — is assumed, and this lesson feeds it the inputs that break learners' tags in real writing. The flagship rule is the hidden negative: never, nobody, no one, nothing, hardly and rarely make a statement negative with no n't in sight, so the tag flips positive — She never calls, does she? Three worked runs drill the scan, and an upgraded decision list makes it step 2 of the machine. A form section extends the tag tables across the full range of tenses and modals, including stacked helpers (she's been practising, hasn't she?) and the three disguises: main-verb have borrowing do, used to taking didn't, and the two-faced 'd that is had before better or a participle but would before rather or a base verb. The compare-and-verdict heart of the lesson separates the two haves — She has a dog, doesn't she? against She has finished, hasn't she? — by one glance at the word that follows. A tricky-subjects table sends nobody, someone and everyone back as they, nothing and everything back as it, this and that back as it, and leaves there in its seat, then a ten-chip sorter drills the they/it choice. A suspicious backstage-style dialogue — who leaked Dana's surprise party? — carries ten tappable tags including the deliberately unflipped same-polarity tag of discovery (Oh, you knew about it, did you?), which gets its own note as spoken and special. Four practice sets of eight, seven, eight and eight items, six repairs of real learner tags, and four watch-out traps — the reversed never-flip, doesn't nobody, the wrong have in the echo, and the double life of 'd — complete the drilling. Teacher notes give a 45-minute sequence, two board moves, the polarity-scan rescue, the voice work same-polarity tags need, and Cambridge B1 Preliminary relevance.