Noun Clauses in Subject Position in Technical English
5 exercises — practise clausal subjects and their extraposed "it" paraphrases.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses a "that"-clause directly as the grammatical subject of the sentence?
"That the tests failed surprised no one on the team" is correct: a full "that"-clause can function directly as the subject of a sentence, taking a singular verb ("surprised") even though it contains its own internal clause. Option B incorrectly inserts the redundant pronoun "it" after the subject clause, duplicating the subject role that the "that"-clause already fills. Option C wrongly uses the present tense "fail" inside the clause, which doesn't match the past-tense context established by "surprised". Option D inserts an ungrammatical extra article "the" before "that", which doesn't belong in this structure.
2 / 5
Which sentence correctly rephrases a subject "that"-clause using the more natural extraposed "it" construction?
"It surprised no one that the tests failed" is correct: this extraposed construction moves the heavy "that"-clause to the end of the sentence and fills the original subject position with the dummy pronoun "it", which is the more natural, commonly preferred pattern in English, especially in speech and informal writing. Option B keeps the clause in subject position but redundantly and ungrammatically adds "it" right after it, creating two subjects. Option C scrambles the word order into an ungrammatical sequence. Option D incorrectly uses "there" instead of "it" as the dummy subject, which is not valid for this extraposition pattern.
3 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses a "whether"-clause as the subject of the sentence, with the correct singular verb agreement?
"Whether the migration succeeds depends on the rollback plan" is correct: the entire "whether"-clause functions as a single, singular subject, so it takes the singular verb "depends", and the embedded clause itself keeps normal statement word order with correct subject-verb agreement ("the migration succeeds"). Option A incorrectly uses the plural verb form "depend" instead of "depends" for the singular clausal subject. Option C wrongly inverts the embedded clause into question word order ("does the migration succeed"), which is not permitted inside a subject noun clause. Option D drops the third-person -s from "succeed", breaking agreement within the embedded clause.
4 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses a "what"-clause as the subject of the sentence in a technical context?
"What caused the outage remains under investigation" is correct: the "what"-clause functions as the singular subject of the sentence and takes the singular verb "remains", while the embedded clause itself keeps normal statement word order. Option B incorrectly uses the plural verb "remain" instead of "remains" for this singular clausal subject. Option C wrongly inserts the auxiliary "did" inside the embedded clause, which is not needed or grammatical in this noun-clause structure. Option D incorrectly uses the -ing form "causing" instead of the finite past tense verb "caused" required inside the embedded clause.
5 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses BOTH a fronted subject noun clause and its extraposed "it" paraphrase with matching, consistent meaning?
"That the API is deprecated matters little now" / "It matters little now that the API is deprecated" is correct: both versions correctly use the singular verb "matters" agreeing with the singular clausal subject (in the first) or the dummy subject "it" (in the second), and both keep the embedded clause "that the API is deprecated" grammatically complete with "is". Option B incorrectly uses the plural "matter" in the second sentence. Option C drops "is" from the first sentence's embedded clause ("the API deprecated"), making it ungrammatical. Option D uses the plural "matter" in the first sentence instead of "matters".