Verbs That Take Only Gerund Complements in Technical English
5 exercises — practise using avoid, risk, consider, involve, and deny with the correct gerund form.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Which sentence correctly completes: "If we skip the load test, we risk _____ a regression into production."
"we risk shipping a regression" is correct because "risk" is one of a fixed set of verbs (along with "avoid", "consider", "involve", "deny", "suggest") that must be followed by a gerund ("-ing" form), never a to-infinitive. Option A ("to ship") is the common learner error of assuming all verbs before an action take "to" + base form. Option C uses the bare base form, which is never grammatical after "risk". Option D uses the past participle, which would require an auxiliary and does not fit this pattern at all.
2 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "avoid" with its required gerund complement in a code review comment?
"Please avoid mutating the shared state directly" is correct: "avoid" always takes a gerund complement, never a to-infinitive or bare infinitive. Option A incorrectly inserts "to", which is ungrammatical after "avoid". Option B uses the bare base form with no "-ing", which is also ungrammatical. Option D uses the past participle form "mutated", which cannot directly follow "avoid" without an auxiliary verb.
3 / 5
Which sentence correctly completes: "The migration plan involves _____ the schema before the traffic cutover."
"The migration plan involves freezing the schema" is correct because "involve" requires a gerund complement to describe what a plan or process consists of. Option A wrongly uses a to-infinitive, which does not follow "involve". Option B uses the bare base form, which is ungrammatical in this position. Option C uses the past participle "frozen", which would require a passive auxiliary structure ("involves the schema being frozen") rather than standing alone after "involves".
4 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "deny" with a gerund to describe a service account's failed access attempt?
"The service account denied accessing the bucket" is correct: "deny" takes a gerund complement to describe the action being denied. Option A incorrectly uses a to-infinitive perfect construction, which does not follow "deny" in standard usage. Option C uses the bare base form "access", which is ungrammatical here. Option D uses the past tense/participle form "accessed" directly after "denied", which is not a valid complementation pattern.
5 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "consider" with a gerund when a lead engineer proposes an architectural change?
"We should consider migrating the monolith to microservices" is correct: "consider" is followed by a gerund when it means "think about doing something". Option A incorrectly inserts a to-infinitive, a very common error since many similar verbs like "decide" and "plan" do take "to" + base form, but "consider" does not. Option B uses the bare base form, which is ungrammatical. Option C uses the past participle "migrated", which cannot follow "consider" without additional auxiliary structure.