5 exercises — practise "what...is" pseudo-cleft sentences for emphasis in technical writing.
0 / 19 completed
1 / 19
Which sentence correctly forms a wh-cleft to emphasize what the team needs to prioritize this sprint?
"What the team needs to prioritize this sprint is the checkout flow refactor" is correct: a wh-cleft begins with a "what"-clause in normal (non-inverted) word order, followed by a form of "be" agreeing with the focused element, then the emphasized information. Option B incorrectly uses the base form "be" instead of the correctly conjugated "is". Option C incorrectly uses "that" instead of "what" to introduce the cleft clause; "that" does not form this pseudo-cleft pattern. Option D incorrectly inserts question-style inversion ("does the team need") inside the what-clause, which must remain in statement word order.
2 / 19
Which sentence correctly forms a reversed wh-cleft, placing the focused information first?
"A faster CI pipeline is what the team wants most" is the correctly reversed wh-cleft: the focused noun phrase comes first, followed by "is", followed by the "what"-clause in normal word order. Option A scrambles the order, placing "is" incorrectly at the very end. Option C incorrectly begins with "is", turning the statement into an ungrammatical question-like fragment. Option D incorrectly adds inversion ("does the team want") inside the what-clause, which should remain uninverted.
3 / 19
Which sentence correctly forms a wh-cleft to emphasize the cause identified during a postmortem?
"What caused the outage was a misconfigured load balancer" is correct: the singular focus "a misconfigured load balancer" requires the singular "was", and the what-clause uses normal statement word order without an extra auxiliary. Option A incorrectly uses the plural "were" for a singular focus. Option B incorrectly inserts "that" before the focused noun phrase, which is not used in this pattern. Option D incorrectly adds the emphatic auxiliary "did" inside the what-clause, which is unnecessary and non-standard here.
4 / 19
Which sentence correctly forms a wh-cleft with an -ing action as the focus, describing what fixed a memory leak?
"What fixed the memory leak was upgrading the garbage collector" is correct: the focused element after "was" can be a gerund phrase describing the action taken. Option A incorrectly combines "to" with the gerund "upgrading", which is a mismatched, ungrammatical hybrid. Option B incorrectly uses the bare base form "upgrade" instead of the gerund, which does not fit grammatically after "was". Option C unnecessarily inserts the emphatic auxiliary "did" inside the what-clause.
5 / 19
Which sentence correctly forms a wh-cleft to emphasize what a new engineer should do first, using "all" as an alternative wh-cleft opener?
"All you need to do is read the onboarding docs" is a correctly formed "all"-cleft (a close relative of the wh-cleft): after "is", the focused verb phrase appears as a bare infinitive (without "to"), which is standard when the cleft clause ends in "do". Option A incorrectly inserts "to" before the gerund "reading", creating an ungrammatical mix. Option B omits the required "is" entirely, leaving the sentence without a main verb linking the two halves. Option C redundantly adds "that" and an extra object pronoun "it", which breaks the clean "all"-cleft pattern.
6 / 19
Code Review Comment: 'The response from the API is unexpectedly large. What did the new validation logic fail to catch?'
This question tests using 'what' to focus on a specific cause during a code review. The core of wh-clefts is pinpointing the *reason* for something. Option 2 correctly identifies the trigger, while the other options misinterpret the role of 'what' in this context – it isn't about performance or input size.
7 / 19
API Response: 'The server returned an error code indicating a validation failure. What specifically was invalid in the submitted data?'
Here, 'what' is used to pinpoint the exact reason for a validation failure. The correct answer focuses on identifying the invalid fields within the data payload – this is the core purpose of wh-clefts in debugging API issues. Options 1 and 2 deal with connectivity or performance; option 4 describes an issue, not its cause.
8 / 19
Code Review Comment: 'The response from the API is unexpectedly large. What did the new validation logic fail to catch?'
This question tests using 'what' to focus on a specific cause during a code review. The core of wh-clefts is pinpointing the *reason* for something. Option 2 correctly identifies the trigger, while the other options misinterpret the role of 'what' in this context – it isn't about performance or input size.
9 / 19
API Response: 'The server returned an error code indicating a validation failure. What specifically was invalid in the submitted data?'
Here, 'what' is used to pinpoint the exact reason for a validation failure. The correct answer focuses on identifying the invalid fields within the data payload – this is the core purpose of wh-clefts in debugging API issues. Options 1 and 2 deal with connectivity or performance; option 4 describes an issue, not its cause.
10 / 19
During a Slack discussion about the recent deployment issues, Sarah says: 'What did the monitoring system *not* flag before the outage?'. Which sentence best demonstrates a wh-cleft in this context?
A wh-cleft with 'what' focuses on a specific piece of information—in this case, the metric that was missing. Options A and B represent general causes or thresholds. Option C asks for the alert trigger itself, not what wasn't detected.
11 / 19
You're writing a PR description to explain why you refactored the data processing pipeline. You want to highlight the root cause of performance issues. Which sentence correctly uses a reversed wh-cleft?
A reversed wh-cleft places the focused element—the inefficient algorithm—at the beginning. This emphasizes that's where the problem lies. Options A and C are general descriptions of the issue, while option B asks about a contributing factor.
12 / 19
After a postmortem on a failed microservice, David says: 'What did the lack of circuit breakers *lead* to?'. Which sentence utilizes a wh-cleft effectively?
This wh-cleft focuses on the *result* of the missing circuit breakers – the cascading failure. It highlights a crucial consequence and is the core element being investigated. Options A and C represent general recommendations or absence of monitoring.
13 / 19
During a standup update, Mark says: 'What should new engineers *first* do when onboarding to this service?' Which sentence correctly uses a wh-cleft with 'all'?
Here, 'what' is used as an alternative wh-cleft opener, focusing on a specific action. Option C accurately reflects this usage—asking what the new engineers needed to do *before* deploying. Option A describes general onboarding needs, and option B asks for knowledge acquisition.
14 / 19
During a code review of the user authentication service, John comments: 'The server is timing out when processing large requests. What did the rate limiting configuration fail to prevent?'
This question tests understanding of wh-clefts with 'what' focusing on a configuration failure. The key is recognizing that 'what' emphasizes *the action* – the misconfiguration. Options A and B represent broader issues (capacity or query inefficiency), while option C highlights a missing element, but not the direct cause being investigated.
15 / 19
After investigating a recent bug report, Maria says: 'What was the root cause of this intermittent failure?'
This question explores a reversed wh-cleft. 'What' here acts as the focus, directly asking about the *cause* of the failure. The other options represent broader systemic problems that don't fit the specific context of a bug report investigation.
16 / 19
In a Slack message to the team, David asks: 'What did the new caching layer *not* address?'
This scenario tests wh-clefts with 'what' highlighting what wasn't addressed. It's important to recognize that this isn't about *why* something didn't work, but rather a direct question about the scope of functionality. Options A and C represent potential problems, while option B is the core focus of the question.
17 / 19
During a PR review, Emily states: 'What did the automated tests *not* detect before deployment?'
This question focuses on a wh-cleft emphasizing what *wasn't* detected. This highlights the importance of test coverage and the potential for undetected bugs. The other options represent aspects of testing that are generally true but don't address the specific focus of the question.
18 / 19
You're writing a Slack message to your team after discovering a performance bottleneck in the image processing service. You want to emphasize what specifically caused the delay. Which sentence correctly uses a wh-cleft?
This question tests using a wh-cleft to pinpoint the *cause* of the performance problem. The phrase 'what did… fail' is crucial for highlighting what specifically didn't contribute to the bottleneck – in this case, the algorithm. Options B & C are about measuring impact or general operations, while option D is irrelevant.
19 / 19
During a code review, Alex comments: 'The database query is returning unexpected results. What did the data transformation function fail to handle correctly?' Consider the context of a complex ETL pipeline.
This question tests understanding of using 'what' to focus on a specific component within a larger process. The correct option directly targets the transformation function's failure, aligning with wh-cleft structure and the scenario of an ETL pipeline. Options A and C shift the focus inappropriately; B is too general, and D focuses on a symptom rather than the root cause.
What will I practise in "Wh-Cleft (Pseudo-Cleft) Sentences with 'What' — IT Grammar Exercise"?
Practise forming "what + clause + be + focus" pseudo-cleft sentences and their reversed variant, plus the related "all"-cleft, to emphasize priorities, causes
How many exercises are in this module?
This module has 19 multiple-choice exercises, each with instant feedback and a full explanation of the correct answer.
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Every exercise is written by the CoderSlingo team, drawing on real workplace English used in IT roles, then reviewed for accuracy and clarity.