5 exercises — practise expressing preferences with "would rather" in technical discussions.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Which sentence correctly expresses a preference about the speaker's own next action?
"I would rather refactor this module than add another workaround" is correct: when the subject of "would rather" is doing the action themselves, it is followed by the bare infinitive (no "to"), and the comparison uses "than" + another bare infinitive. Option A incorrectly adds "to" before "refactor". Option C incorrectly uses the gerund "refactoring". Option D incorrectly uses the past simple "refactored", which is reserved for talking about someone else's action.
2 / 5
Which sentence correctly expresses that the speaker wants someone else to take a different action, using "would rather"?
"I would rather you reviewed this PR before I merge it" is correct: when "would rather" governs a different subject (someone else performing the action), the following verb takes the past simple form, even though the meaning is present or future. Option A incorrectly uses the bare infinitive "review", which is only used when the two subjects are the same. Option C incorrectly adds "to" before the verb. Option D incorrectly uses "will", a form "would rather" never takes in this pattern.
3 / 5
Which sentence correctly expresses regret or a preference about a past decision, using "would rather have"?
"We would rather have used feature flags instead of a big-bang release" is correct: to express a preference about a past, already-completed action, "would rather" is followed by "have" + past participle. Option B omits "have", which is required for the past reference. Option C incorrectly uses the base form "use" after "have" instead of the past participle "used". Option D incorrectly uses the gerund "having used".
4 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses a comparative "would rather...than" structure to compare two technical approaches?
"I would rather debug this locally than spend an hour setting up remote debugging" is correct: both halves of the comparison use the bare infinitive, joined by "than" alone, without repeating "rather". Option A incorrectly adds "to" before "spend" in the second clause. Option C incorrectly uses gerunds throughout. Option D redundantly repeats "rather" before "than", which is non-standard.
5 / 5
Which question correctly uses "would rather" to ask about someone else's preferred action in a sprint planning context?
"Would you rather we deployed on Thursday or Friday?" is correct: with a different subject ("we") after "would rather", the verb takes the past simple form "deployed" even though the question concerns a future choice. Option B incorrectly uses the base form "deploy", which only applies when the subjects match. Option C incorrectly uses the gerund. Option D inserts "that", which is not standard in this construction and still uses the wrong verb form.