5 exercises — using do/does/did for emphasis to affirm facts and correct false assumptions in reviews and reports.
Key patterns:
does/do/did + base verb — emphasis or correction, not a question or negative
The main verb after emphatic do stays in its base form (does handle, not does handles)
Match the auxiliary to tense and subject: does (3rd sg. present), do (other present), did (any past)
Commonly used to contradict a doubted or false claim in reviews
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
A reviewer questions whether error handling exists. The engineer replies in the pull request. Which response correctly uses emphatic "do" to affirm and correct the assumption?
Emphatic "do" (here, does handle) is used to stress and affirm a fact that has been doubted or contradicted, adding rhetorical emphasis that a plain present-tense verb lacks. This is distinct from the auxiliary "do" used in questions and negatives — here it functions purely for emphasis, common in code review replies that push back on an incorrect assumption. A plain statement (option A) is grammatically correct but lacks the corrective force needed to directly counter the reviewer's doubt.
2 / 5
A postmortem draft is being reviewed, and a colleague claims the on-call engineer never received the page. Which sentence uses emphatic "do" to assert the opposite, based on evidence?
"Did receive" uses the emphatic auxiliary did before the base form of the verb specifically to contradict a false claim ("never received"). This structure — did + base verb — is reserved for emphasis or contrast in past tense, whereas the plain past tense (option B) merely states the fact without emphasizing the correction. Emphatic "do/does/did" is one of the few grammatical tools in English dedicated purely to stress rather than tense or aspect.
3 / 5
Which sentence is grammatically correct as an example of emphatic "do" used for contrast in a technical discussion?
After emphatic "does", the main verb must appear in its base form (invalidate), not the third-person singular (invalidates), past tense (invalidated), or -ing form (invalidating). This mirrors the rule for all auxiliary "do" constructions: the auxiliary carries the tense and agreement information, so the following verb stays uninflected. Getting this verb form wrong is a common error even among advanced learners when adding emphasis.
4 / 5
A team lead writes in a design review: "I know the diagram looks like the service is stateless, but it _____ maintain in-memory session state, which is exactly the issue we need to address." Which phrase fits, using emphatic "do" for contrast with an implied assumption?
Since the subject is it (third person singular) and the context is present tense ("looks like... is"), the correct emphatic auxiliary is "does", followed by the base form maintain. Do would be used with plural or first/second-person subjects; did would shift the sentence into past tense, contradicting the present-tense framing; doing is not a valid auxiliary form at all.
5 / 5
In a stand-up, a developer says: "I _____ push the fix yesterday, even though the ticket still shows it as open — someone probably forgot to close it." Which emphatic form correctly fits the past-tense context?
"Did" is the correct emphatic auxiliary for past tense with any subject, including I, and it forces the following verb into its base form (push), which matches the sentence. Do and does would incorrectly shift the sentence to present tense, and done is a past participle that cannot function as an emphatic auxiliary at all — it would require a form of "have" (e.g., "I have done...").