5 exercises — mastering fixed preposition collocations: deployed to, integrated with, depends on, compatible with, and differs from.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Which sentence uses the correct preposition for deployment destination?
"deployed to production" is the standard collocation. The preposition to signals movement toward a destination — and deployment is an action of moving code from one environment to another. Standard IT collocations with to: "deploy to production / staging / Kubernetes", "push to the registry", "publish to npm", "release to the App Store", "ship to users." Option A ("in production") is correct for stating where something currently runs: "The service is running in production." Option C ("at production") is incorrect — at is for physical locations and specific points. Option D ("on production") is sometimes heard informally (especially by non-native speakers) but is not standard professional English. Rule: movement/destination → to; current state/location → in.
2 / 5
A system architecture doc states: "The authentication service is __ the payment gateway." Which preposition correctly expresses a technical integration relationship?
"integrated with" is the standard IT collocation. Two systems are integrated with each other — it implies a mutual connection between peers: "The auth service is integrated with the payment gateway", "The CRM is integrated with Salesforce." Option B ("integrated to") is not standard. Option C ("integrated into") is used when one thing is absorbed into another: "The feature was integrated into the main branch", "The module was integrated into the platform" — this implies the first thing becomes part of the second. Option D ("integrated by") uses the agent passive — it would answer "integrated by whom?": "The systems were integrated by the DevOps team." Collocations to memorise: integrated with (peer systems), integrated into (merging into a whole), compatible with, connected to.
3 / 5
A package.json description says: "This library __ React 18 and Node.js 20 or later." Which preposition pair correctly completes the compatibility statement?
"is compatible with" is the fixed collocation — compatible always takes with in English. "This library is compatible with React 18" — never "compatible to" or "compatible for." When listing compatible versions, use or to mean "either one satisfies the requirement": "compatible with React 16, 17, or 18." Option A uses "compatible to" — incorrect preposition. Option C ("works on") is more informal and typically used for operating systems: "works on macOS, Windows, and Linux." Option D ("runs at") is used for speed/ports: "runs at 3000", "runs at 60fps." Fixed collocation list: compatible with, depends on, relies on, built on, based on, deployed to, integrated with.
4 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses a preposition to express a technical dependency?
"relies on" is the fixed phrasal verb. Dependency expressions in IT English always use on: "relies on", "depends on", "built on", "runs on". These are not interchangeable with other prepositions. Common dependency collocations: "The frontend depends on the REST API", "The migration script relies on the database being available", "The service runs on Node.js 20", "The platform is built on Kubernetes." Other options are simply incorrect English. The on preposition for dependency is extremely stable — there are no exceptions. When writing dependency documentation, architecture diagrams, and README files, these collocations must be exact: "depends on [package]@[version]" is the standard npm/pip/cargo pattern.
5 / 5
A ticket description says: "The API response differs __ the documentation." Which preposition correctly expresses a discrepancy?
"differs from" is the only correct form. In English, differ always takes from when expressing a difference: "The implementation differs from the spec", "The actual behaviour differs from what was documented", "The response schema differs from the expected format." This is a very common source of errors for non-native speakers who translate from their language (in many languages, the equivalent uses "with"). In IT writing, discrepancy expressions are everywhere in bug reports and QA: "The output differs from the expected result", "The endpoint differs from the API contract." Related collocations with from: "different from" (not "different to" in formal professional English), "deviate from", "diverge from", "vary from."