NAME CLASS DATE

Language
Handbook 1 The Parts of Speech
WORKSHEET 3 Identifying Adjectives
Exercise A Underline each adjective in the following paragraph. Do not include the
articles a, an, and the.

EXAMPLE [1] Bonsai is the art of growing tiny trees.

[1] In Japan, some people grow miniature trees that have a famous history and an
important place in horticultural art. [2] Through pruning and fertilization, the trees are
trained to keep the shape and proportion of larger trees. [3] The trees often have small
leaves and small fruit. [4] The trees have an old and wind-swept appearance, as though
they had grown in the outdoors. [5] With bonsai, gardeners can create realistic landscapes
in pots and carry scenes of mountain crags or vast plains into their homes.

Exercise B Underline each of the twenty-five adjectives in the following story, and
draw an arrow from the adjective to the word or words it modifies. Treat hyphenated
compound words like spine-tingling as one word. Do not include the articles a, an, and
the.

EXAMPLE Scary stories can make the imagination run wild.

On hot summer nights, Julio and the other boys sleep out in the yard. They put up a
tent in a dark corner, where the trees and bushes are thick. That way the boys can easily
imagine they are in wild, uninhabited country.
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

One evening Mike suggested that they tell ghost stories or tales of bear hunts. After a
particularly spine-tingling story, Mike couldn’t sleep; he was too nervous.

About midnight he saw something move in the shadows. “Yeow!” he cried out. “There
is a big bear! It is really huge!”

In the sudden confusion, the small tent collapsed on top of the boys; each one
seemed eager to go in a different direction. Anxious parents ran out of the nearby house.
They found a coal-black dog. Like a bear, this animal was very curious. It was sniffing at
the tangle of arms, legs, and bodies under the tent.

Elements of Literature The Parts of Speech 3

 Language
Handbook 1 The Parts of Speech
Worksheet 1 Worksheet 3
Identifying Nouns Identifying Adjectives
Exercise A Exercise A
1. Mercury; planet; sun 1. some; miniature; famous; important;
2. data; spacecraft; astronomers; Mercury; Moon; horticultural
craters 2. larger
3. surface;Venus; clouds; gas; landscape; telescopes 3. small; small
4. Craters; meteorites; fragments; comets; 4. old; wind-swept
asteroids; planet; planet’s; satellite 5. realistic; mountain; vast; (and their if you
5. craters; Moon; miles classify possessive pronouns as adjectives)

Exercise B Exercise B
1. formation; island; process 1. hot—nights
2. process; millions; years 2. summer—nights
3. volcanoes; mountains; floor; sea 3. other—boys
4. eruption; lava; pile; rock; years; mountain; reach; 4. dark—corner
waves 5. thick—trees, bushes
5. island; reef 6. That—way
6. islands; surface; ocean; mountains; ridges; 7. wild—country
canyons; cliffs 8. uninhabited—country
7. Plants; animals; island; wind; current 9. One—evening
8. forms; life; island; rafts; limbs; vegetation 10. ghost—stories
9. organisms; birds; island; lands 11. bear—hunts
10. Galapagos Islands; forms; life; tortoises; 12. spine-tingling—story
sunflowers; mainland
13. nervous—he
14. big—bear
Worksheet 2
15. huge—It
Identifying and Using Pronouns 16. sudden—confusion
Exercise A 17. small—tent
1. who—Elena; it—ball 18. each—one
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.

2. his—Otis; she—sister 19. eager—one

3. I—Mike; it—game 20. different—direction
4. her—Gabriella; it—cash 21. Anxious—parents
5. they—children; who—driver 22. nearby—house
6. he—Elliot; it—French 23. coal-black—dog
7. her—Denise; them—sandwiches 24. this—animal
8. I—Jerry; myself—I (or Jerry) 25. curious—animal
9. she—Sheila; them—comedies
10. she—Keiko; it—volleyball Worksheet 4
Identifying and Using Verbs
Exercise B Exercise A
1. who 6. that
1. formed
2. He 7. they
2. needed; planned
3. his 8. her
3. financed
4. it 9. herself
4. sold
5. it 10. She
5. constructed; bought; placed
6. sketched; carved; made; sold

Elements of Literature Answer Key 1