"The Fact That" Nominal Clauses in Technical English
5 exercises — practise nominalizing propositions with "the fact that" in technical justifications and root-cause analyses.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "the fact that" as the subject of the sentence in a technical justification?
"The fact that the cache invalidates on every write explains the latency spike" is correct: "the fact that" introduces a full clause functioning as the subject, and "that" must be included to mark the clause boundary clearly. Option B omits "that", which is possible informally but not the standard, unambiguous form expected in technical writing. Option C incorrectly inserts a comma between the subject clause and the verb "explains", separating the subject from its verb. Option D replaces "the" with "that", producing an ungrammatical determiner sequence.
2 / 5
Choose the sentence where "the fact that" is used correctly as the object of a preposition.
"We proceeded despite the fact that the tests were still failing" is correct: "despite" takes "the fact that + clause" as its object, a standard way to concede a fact before stating a contrasting action. Option B moves "that" to the end, which is ungrammatical. Option C incorrectly adds "of" after "despite", which does not take "of" before a noun phrase. Option D places the object before the preposition, producing an ungrammatical word order.
3 / 5
Which sentence correctly avoids unnecessary use of "the fact that" for a more concise, direct statement?
"The team ignored the fact that the logs showed repeated timeouts" is correct and idiomatic: "ignore" typically takes a noun phrase object, so "the fact that + clause" fills that slot naturally; a bare "that-clause" directly after "ignored" (option A) sounds unnatural because "ignore" does not usually take a plain that-clause as object. Option C awkwardly passivizes and reorders the sentence, producing unnatural, unclear phrasing. Option D adds a needless cleft structure that makes the sentence harder to parse without adding clarity.
4 / 5
Select the sentence that correctly uses "the fact that" as a subject complement after "is".
"The reason for the outage is the fact that a certificate expired unnoticed" is correct: "the fact that + clause" serves as the subject complement after the linking verb "is", with "that" clearly marking the start of the clause. Option B omits "that", which is grammatically acceptable but less precise and clear in formal technical writing, particularly where the sentence is already dense. Option C incorrectly substitutes "that fact" for "the fact that", reversing the required structure. Option D inserts an unnecessary comma inside the clause, breaking its flow.
5 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "the fact that" as the object of a verb in a root-cause analysis?
"The postmortem highlights the fact that no rollback plan existed" is correct: "the fact that + clause" functions as the direct object of "highlights", correctly formed with the definite article and the clause-introducing "that" in place. Option B moves "the fact" to the end, producing an ungrammatical sentence. Option C omits the required article "the" before "fact", which is ungrammatical. Option D misplaces "that" inside the clause instead of at its start, garbling the structure.