5 exercises — form correct question tags after positive, negative, and modal verb statements in professional technical conversations.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
The deployment is scheduled for Friday, ___?
Question tags are formed using the auxiliary of the main clause, negated. "The deployment is scheduled" → auxiliary is "is" → negative tag is "isn't it." The rule: positive statement → negative tag. "Is it?" would only work if the statement were negative. "Doesn't it?" uses the wrong auxiliary. "Wasn't it?" uses wrong tense. Question tags in meetings and standups signal that you expect confirmation: "The deployment is scheduled for Friday, isn't it?" = "I believe this to be true — please confirm."
2 / 5
The API has never returned a null body for a 200 response, ___?
"Never" is a negative word, so the statement is semantically negative: "has never returned" = a negative idea. A negative statement takes a POSITIVE tag: "has it?" The rule: negative statement → positive tag. This is the opposite of the standard positive→negative pattern. Watch for these negative words that flip the tag: never, nobody, nothing, hardly, scarcely, rarely. "Has it?" is the correct positive tag for this sentence.
3 / 5
You can reproduce the bug on your local machine, ___?
"You can reproduce" is positive → negative tag "can't you." Modal auxiliary "can" → negative "can't." This pattern is common in debugging conversations: "You can reproduce the bug on your local machine, can't you?" = I believe you can — please confirm. If the speaker is genuinely unsure whether you can reproduce it, they might use rising intonation; if fairly certain, falling intonation. In technical communication, question tags soften directives and confirm shared understanding.
4 / 5
Nobody has push access to the main branch without a review, ___?
"Nobody" is an indefinite negative pronoun — sentences with "nobody," "no one," "nothing" are treated as negative statements and take positive tags. The pronoun in the tag for "nobody" is "they" (gender-neutral third person plural is standard for indefinite pronouns in modern English). So: "Nobody has push access, have they?" — the "have they" is positive because the statement is negative via "nobody." Option D is a double negative, which is ungrammatical in standard English.
5 / 5
When is a question tag appropriate in a professional technical context?
Question tags in professional technical communication serve two main pragmatic functions: (1) seeking confirmation of something you believe is true ("The PR has been reviewed, hasn't it?"), and (2) softening an invitation to speak or involve someone ("You worked on this module last quarter, didn't you?"). They are typical in spoken communication — standups, design reviews, client calls. They are NOT appropriate in written technical documentation (API docs, specs), where you use declarative statements. They cannot express strong disagreement (which uses direct contradiction or rhetorical questions).