"Little Wonder (That)" as an Unsurprising-Result Marker
10 exercises — how "little wonder (that)" flags a result as fully predictable given the stated cause, its fixed grammatical form, and how it compares to "no wonder" and "little did we know."
Quick reference
Little wonder (that): marks a following fact as entirely unsurprising given a stated cause
Synonym: "no wonder" (more conversational); do not mix as "a small wonder that"
Contrast: "little did we know" means lack of foresight — a different idiom entirely
Followed by a fact or settled result, never a question, recommendation, or "if" clause
Register: neutral-to-slightly-formal, common in postmortems and retrospectives
0 / 25 completed
1 / 25
A retrospective states: "The service had no rate limiting and no caching. ___ it fell over during the traffic spike." Which phrase best signals the outcome was entirely predictable given those facts?
Little wonder (often "it's little wonder that...") signals that a following result is completely unsurprising given the preceding facts — "given what we just said, of course this happened." "A small wonder" is not the fixed idiom (the correct form omits the article: "little wonder," or uses "small wonder" without "a" as a variant, but "a small wonder" mixing both is non-standard here). "Little did we know" is a narrative inversion idiom meaning "we had no idea at the time," a completely different meaning about lack of foresight, not lack of surprise. "Wonder if" introduces a genuine question of uncertainty, unrelated.
2 / 25
Which sentence uses "little wonder" correctly?
"The team skipped code review for months; little wonder the codebase became inconsistent" correctly uses the phrase to mark an unsurprising consequence of a clearly stated cause. It cannot introduce a direct instruction ("please review"), a recommendation ("we should refactor" — that is not something that "happened" and can be unsurprising), or a conditional ("if the deploy fails") — the following clause must state a fact or result that has already occurred or is a settled truth, not a hypothetical or a suggestion.
3 / 25
Fill the blank: "The onboarding docs hadn't been updated in two years. ___ that the new hire got stuck for a week."
Little wonder (here in the fuller form "little wonder that...") is correct. Note both forms are standard: the bare "Little wonder [clause]" and the fuller "It's little wonder that [clause]." The distractors scramble the word order into invalid, non-existent phrases.
4 / 25
Which pair correctly distinguishes "little wonder" from "no wonder"?
"No wonder" and "little wonder" are close synonyms, both marking a following fact as unsurprising given context — "The server has 10,000 open connections; no wonder it's slow" versus the slightly more formal "The server has 10,000 open connections; little wonder it's slow." The register difference is subtle: "no wonder" is extremely common in spoken English, while "little wonder" appears a bit more often in written retrospectives and reports, though both are broadly interchangeable.
5 / 25
A postmortem reads: "Deploys required six manual approval steps and no automated tests. ___ releases were rare and stressful." Which best completes the sentence?
Little wonder is the correct fixed phrase. "Wonders little" reverses the words incorrectly. "Little wondering" wrongly uses the gerund form of "wonder" instead of the noun, breaking the idiom. "Wonder of little" is an invalid, non-existent construction.
6 / 25
Which sentence contains an error in the use of "little wonder"?
"Little wonder should we add monitoring to this service" misuses the phrase, following it with an inverted modal question structure ("should we") as if it were introducing a recommendation or a question. "Little wonder" must be followed by a straightforward independent clause (optionally with "that") stating a fact or result, never a question or a suggestion about future action. The other three sentences use it correctly.
7 / 25
Choose the sentence where "little wonder" is best replaced by "unsurprisingly" without changing the meaning.
"The team never wrote integration tests for this module; unsurprisingly, it broke in three different ways after the refactor" preserves the meaning: an expected, unsurprising outcome given the stated cause. The other options misuse the phrase as an introduction to a recommendation, attach it to a conditional "if" clause (a genuinely open, uncertain case — the opposite of the settled fact "little wonder" requires), or garble it with "how," which does not belong in this idiom.
8 / 25
A design review comment states: "This module has 4,000 lines and no tests. ___ nobody wants to touch it." Which best fits?
Little wonder is the correct, singular, article-free form. "Little wonders" incorrectly pluralizes the noun "wonder," which does not happen in this idiom. "A little wonder that" inserts an article that does not belong (compare correct alternate forms "it's little wonder that" or bare "little wonder," never "a little wonder that" with this meaning — "a little wonder" as a noun phrase would instead describe an impressive small thing, a completely different sense). "Wonder a little" scrambles the phrase into an unrelated meaning about wondering mildly.
9 / 25
Which register note about "little wonder" is accurate?
"Little wonder" sits at a neutral-to-slightly-formal register, entirely at home in written postmortems, retrospectives, and technical reports — it signals that the writer expects the reader to find the following fact just as unsurprising as they do, given the clearly stated cause. It applies equally to negative outcomes (a crash, a delay) and neutral or positive ones (a smooth rollout, given good preparation), and is always followed by a stated fact, never a question.
10 / 25
Which sentence best demonstrates "little wonder" marking an expected result in a technical write-up?
"The team had been manually copying config files between environments for years; little wonder a typo eventually caused a production outage" is the idiomatic use: a clearly stated risky practice followed by an entirely expected bad outcome. The other options misuse the phrase to introduce a forward-looking recommendation, insert "how" into the fixed idiom, or attach it to a conditional "if" clause describing a hypothetical future — none of which fit "little wonder," which always marks an already-known or settled fact as unsurprising.
11 / 25
During a code review of the new payment processing service, Sarah comments: 'The response time is consistently over 5 seconds. Little wonder we've had so many complaints about slow transactions.' What does this comment primarily indicate?
'Little wonder' signals that the outcome – slow response times – was a logical and foreseeable result of pre-existing conditions. It isn't necessarily a critical error but rather an observation about how design decisions impacted performance. The incorrect options either suggest an unexpected problem or blame attribution, which are not what the comment is conveying.
12 / 25
You're drafting a Slack message to your team about a recent deployment. You write: 'The new version failed because of a dependency conflict. Little wonder we didn't test this integration thoroughly before release.' What is the main purpose of this sentence?
The phrase 'little wonder' here is used to indicate an expected outcome. It's not a statement of blame but a reflection that the result (failure due to lack of testing) was predictable given the circumstances. Options A and D are inappropriate for this context; option C is simply stating a fact without analysis.
13 / 25
The documentation for the API endpoint lacked clear rate limits. GET /users/{userId} was exposed directly to the public internet with no security measures. ___ that users could easily abuse the service and cause denial-of-service attacks.
'Little wonder' here highlights the logical connection between the missing rate limits and the vulnerability. The lack of controls made abuse a foreseeable risk. Options A and C are dismissive explanations; option D suggests a surprise rather than an anticipated outcome.
14 / 25
During a standup meeting, David says: 'We're still struggling with the database migrations. No wonder they keep failing – the schema changes are too frequent and undocumented.' Which of the following best explains the meaning of this statement?
'No wonder' is used here to indicate that the failures were directly caused by the documented conditions – frequent, undocumented schema changes. It's a direct causal link. The other options misinterpret David's statement or introduce irrelevant factors.
15 / 25
In a code review comment for a new feature, Alex writes: 'The UI component uses excessive JavaScript and has no error handling. Little wonder users are reporting it's slow and buggy.' What does this statement primarily emphasize?
'Little wonder' signals a connection between cause (poor design) and effect (slow, buggy UI). It implies that the issues were predictable given the technical decisions made. Option A suggests intentional poor design; option B is an excuse rather than an explanation.
16 / 25
During a code review of the new payment processing service, Sarah comments: 'The response time is consistently over 5 seconds. Little wonder we've had so many complaints about slow transactions.' What does this comment primarily indicate?
'Little wonder' signals that the outcome – slow response times – was a logical and foreseeable result of pre-existing conditions. It isn't necessarily a critical error but rather an observation about how design decisions impacted performance. The incorrect options either suggest an unexpected problem or blame attribution, which are not what the comment is conveying.
17 / 25
You're drafting a Slack message to your team about a recent deployment. You write: 'The new version failed because of a dependency conflict. Little wonder we didn't test this integration thoroughly before release.' What is the main purpose of this sentence?
The phrase 'little wonder' here is used to indicate an expected outcome. It's not a statement of blame but a reflection that the result (failure due to lack of testing) was predictable given the circumstances. Options A and D are inappropriate for this context; option C is simply stating a fact without analysis.
18 / 25
The documentation for the API endpoint lacked clear rate limits. GET /users/{userId} was exposed directly to the public internet with no security measures. ___ that users could easily abuse the service and cause denial-of-service attacks.
'Little wonder' here highlights the logical connection between the missing rate limits and the vulnerability. The lack of controls made abuse a foreseeable risk. Options A and C are dismissive explanations; option D suggests a surprise rather than an anticipated outcome.
19 / 25
During a standup meeting, David says: 'We're still struggling with the database migrations. No wonder they keep failing – the schema changes are too frequent and undocumented.' Which of the following best explains the meaning of this statement?
'No wonder' is used here to indicate that the failures were directly caused by the documented conditions – frequent, undocumented schema changes. It's a direct causal link. The other options misinterpret David's statement or introduce irrelevant factors.
20 / 25
In a code review comment for a new feature, Alex writes: 'The UI component uses excessive JavaScript and has no error handling. Little wonder users are reporting it's slow and buggy.' What does this statement primarily emphasize?
'Little wonder' signals a connection between cause (poor design) and effect (slow, buggy UI). It implies that the issues were predictable given the technical decisions made. Option A suggests intentional poor design; option B is an excuse rather than an explanation.
21 / 25
During a code review of the new payment processing service, Sarah comments: 'The response time is consistently over 5 seconds. Little wonder we've had so many complaints about slow transactions.' What does this comment primarily indicate?
'Little wonder' signals that the outcome – slow response times – was a logical and foreseeable result of pre-existing conditions. It isn't necessarily a critical error but rather an observation about how design decisions impacted performance. The incorrect options either suggest an unexpected problem or blame attribution, which are not what the comment is conveying.
22 / 25
You're drafting a Slack message to your team about a recent deployment. You write: 'The new version failed because of a dependency conflict. Little wonder we didn't test this integration thoroughly before release.' What is the main purpose of this sentence?
The phrase 'little wonder' here is used to indicate an expected outcome. It's not a statement of blame but a reflection that the result (failure due to lack of testing) was predictable given the circumstances. Options A and D are inappropriate for this context; option C is simply stating a fact without analysis.
23 / 25
The documentation for the API endpoint lacked clear rate limits. GET /users/{userId} was exposed directly to the public internet with no security measures. ___ that users could easily abuse the service and cause denial-of-service attacks.
'Little wonder' here highlights the logical connection between the missing rate limits and the vulnerability. The lack of controls made abuse a foreseeable risk. Options A and C are dismissive explanations; option D suggests a surprise rather than an anticipated outcome.
24 / 25
During a standup meeting, David says: 'We're still struggling with the database migrations. No wonder they keep failing – the schema changes are too frequent and undocumented.' Which of the following best explains the meaning of this statement?
'No wonder' is used here to indicate that the failures were directly caused by the documented conditions – frequent, undocumented schema changes. It's a direct causal link. The other options misinterpret David's statement or introduce irrelevant factors.
25 / 25
In a code review comment for a new feature, Alex writes: 'The UI component uses excessive JavaScript and has no error handling. Little wonder users are reporting it's slow and buggy.' What does this statement primarily emphasize?
'Little wonder' signals a connection between cause (poor design) and effect (slow, buggy UI). It implies that the issues were predictable given the technical decisions made. Option A suggests intentional poor design; option B is an excuse rather than an explanation.
What will I practise in ""Little Wonder (That)" as an Unsurprising-Result Marker — IT English Grammar"?
Practice using "little wonder (that)" to mark a following fact as entirely expected given a clearly stated cause, in postmortems and retrospectives, and how it
How many exercises are in this module?
This module has 25 multiple-choice exercises, each with instant feedback and a full explanation of the correct answer.
Is this exercise free to use?
Yes. Every exercise on CoderSlingo, including this one, is free to use with no account, sign-up, or paywall.
Do I need to create an account to do these exercises?
No account is required. Just click an option to answer — your score for this session is tracked automatically in the progress bar above.
What happens if I choose the wrong answer?
You'll immediately see which answer was correct, plus a full explanation covering the grammar rule and reasoning behind it — mistakes are where most of the learning happens.
Can I retry the exercises if I want a higher score?
Yes — use the "Try again" button on the results screen to reset and go through all the questions again.
Is my progress saved if I close the page?
No. Progress is tracked only for your current visit; reloading or leaving the page resets the counter. This keeps the exercise simple and account-free.
Where can I find more Grammar exercises?
Browse the full Grammar hub for related drills, or check the "Next up" link below to continue with a connected topic.
How is this different from reading an article on the same topic?
Articles explain grammar rules in prose; this exercise tests and reinforces those rules through active recall with immediate feedback — the two work best together.
Who writes these exercises?
Every exercise is written by the CoderSlingo team, drawing on real workplace English used in IT roles, then reviewed for accuracy and clarity.