5 exercises — practise attaching -ing result clauses to describe consequences.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses an -ing clause of result to describe the consequence of a database failover?
"...failed over, causing a thirty-second write outage" is correct: a comma followed by an -ing participle clause is the standard way to attach a result to a preceding main clause, and the implied subject of "causing" is the whole preceding clause (the failover event), not a separate noun. Option A uses the past tense "caused", which would need its own subject and coordinating conjunction ("and caused") to be grammatical as written. Option C incorrectly uses a to-infinitive, which expresses purpose rather than result. Option D uses the bare base form, which cannot follow a comma in this construction.
2 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "resulting in" as an -ing result clause after a memory leak is described?
"...leaked memory for six hours, resulting in an OOM kill of the pod" is correct: the -ing form "resulting" attaches smoothly after the comma to summarize the consequence of the entire preceding clause. Option B uses the finite past tense "resulted", which reads as a second independent clause but is missing the required conjunction "and". Option C uses the bare base form, which is ungrammatical after a comma in this position. Option D wrongly uses a to-infinitive, which would imply intention or purpose rather than an unintended consequence.
3 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses an -ing clause of result to describe a misconfigured firewall rule's effect?
"...misapplied, blocking all inbound traffic on port 443..." is correct: the -ing clause of result needs no explicit subject because it refers back to the entire main clause. Option A uses the finite past tense "blocked" without a coordinating conjunction, creating a comma splice. Option C uses the bare base form, which cannot stand alone as a participle clause. Option D incorrectly inserts the pronoun "it" before the -ing form, which is redundant and ungrammatical in this reduced clause structure.
4 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "leading to" as an -ing result clause in a postmortem summary?
"...skipped the canary stage, leading to a full rollout..." is correct: "leading to" is a standard -ing result-clause pattern used to summarize consequences in postmortems. Option B uses the bare base form "lead", which cannot follow a comma here. Option C uses the finite past tense "led", which would require "and" to join it as a second clause rather than a reduced participle clause. Option D incorrectly uses a to-infinitive, which suggests purpose rather than an unintended downstream effect.
5 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses an -ing clause of result after describing a retry storm caused by a client bug?
"...triggered a retry storm, overwhelming the API gateway within seconds" is correct: the -ing participle clause attaches directly after the comma with no coordinating conjunction needed, since it functions as a modifier of the whole preceding clause rather than a separate independent clause. Option B uses the finite past tense "overwhelmed" without "and", creating a comma splice. Option C uses the ungrammatical bare base form. Option D incorrectly adds "and" before the -ing form, which is redundant because -ing result clauses are non-finite modifiers, not coordinated independent clauses.