Linking Verbs and Subject Complements in Technical English
5 exercises — practise adjective vs adverb choice after linking verbs like seem, become, and remain.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses an adjective, not an adverb, as a subject complement after the linking verb "seem"?
"The new caching layer seems stable under load" is correct: after linking verbs like "seem", the complement describes the subject itself and must be an adjective ("stable"), not an adverb. Option A incorrectly uses the adverb "stably", which would describe how an action is performed, but "seem" doesn't take an adverbial manner complement here — it links the subject to a description of its state. Option C wrongly substitutes the noun "stability" where an adjective is needed to directly describe "the caching layer". Option D inserts an unnecessary and ungrammatical "to" before the adjective.
2 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "become" with a noun phrase as a subject complement?
"...has become the de facto standard for container orchestration" is correct: "become" is a linking verb that can take a noun phrase complement ("the de facto standard"), and the definite article "the" is required before this specific, unique noun phrase. Option B incorrectly omits the article "the", which is required before a singular countable noun phrase like "de facto standard". Option C wrongly adds the adverb ending "-ly" to "standard", turning a noun into an invalid adverb form. Option D inserts an ungrammatical "to" before the noun complement, which "become" does not take.
3 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "look" as a linking verb with an adjective complement, distinct from its use as an action verb?
"The dashboard looks good after the redesign" is correct: as a linking verb describing appearance, "look" takes the adjective "good" to describe the subject's quality. Option A uses "well", which functions as an adjective only in the specific sense of health/wellness, not general quality, so it doesn't fit describing a dashboard's appearance. Option C uses the nonstandard form "goodly", which is not a standard English adverb or adjective in this context. Option D forces the health-related sense of "well" onto a dashboard by adding "health-wise", which is an awkward and unnatural workaround rather than correct usage.
4 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "remain" as a linking verb with an adjective complement to describe an unchanged state?
"The legacy API remains stable despite the recent refactor" is correct: "remain" functions as a linking verb meaning "continue to be", and it correctly takes the adjective "stable" to describe the ongoing state of the subject. Option B incorrectly uses the adverb "stably" after the linking verb. Option C awkwardly adds the unnecessary adverb "normally" at the end, and the continuous form is unnatural for this stative meaning of "remain". Option D uses "stabilized", which is a past participle functioning more like a verb form describing a completed action, and the appended note "as a noun" is both incorrect (it isn't a noun) and does not belong in a sentence.
5 / 5
Which sentence correctly contrasts a linking-verb adjective complement with a following adverb that modifies a different, separate verb?
"The system appears stable, and it responds quickly to health checks" is correct: "appears" is a linking verb here, so it correctly takes the adjective "stable" as its complement, while "responds" is a regular action verb that correctly takes the adverb "quickly" to describe how it performs that action. Option B wrongly uses the adverb "stably" after the linking verb "appears" and the adjective "quick" instead of the adverb "quickly" after the action verb "responds" — both errors are backwards. Option C keeps the adjective error correct for "appears" but wrongly uses "quick" instead of "quickly" for "responds". Option D makes the same reversed error as B, using an adverb after the linking verb and an adjective-shaped choice is at least avoided, but "stably" is still wrong.