Sentence Structure- Exercise

It’s recap time!

In terms of structure, sentences can be classified in four ways:

Simple —- One independent clause 

Compound —- At least two independent clauses

Complex —- An independent clause and at least one dependent clause

Compound-complex —- Two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause

This exercise will give you practice in identifying these four sentence structures.

The sentences in this exercise have been adapted from poems in two books by Shel Silverstein: Where the Sidewalk Ends (HarperCollins, 1974) and Falling Up (HarperCollins, 1996).

Identify each of the following sentences as simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex.

1) I made an airplane out of stone.

2) I put a piece of cantaloupe underneath the microscope.

3) Oaties stay oaty, and Wheat Chex stay floaty, and nothing can take the puff out of Puffed Rice.

4) While fishing in the blue lagoon, I caught a lovely silver fish.

5) They say if you step on a crack, you will break your mother’s back.

6) My voice was raspy, rough, and cracked.

7) I opened my eyes and looked up at the rain, and it dripped in my head and flowed into my brain.

8) They say that once in Zanzibar a boy stuck out his tongue so far that it reached the heavens and touched a star, which burned him rather badly.

9) I’m going to Camp Wonderful beside Lake Paradise across from Blissful Mountain in the Valley of the Nice.

10) I joke with the bats and have intimate chats with the cooties who crawl through my hair.

11) The animals snarled and screeched and growled and whinnied and whimpered and hooted and howled and gobbled up the whole ice cream stand.

12) The antlers of a standing moose, as everybody knows, are just the perfect place to hang your wet and drippy clothes.

13) We’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, and we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go.

14) If I had a brontosaurus, I would name him Horace or Morris.

15) I am writing these poems from inside a lion, and it’s rather dark in here.

16) A piece of sky broke off and fell through the crack in the ceiling right into my soup.

17) The grungy, grumpy, grouchy Giant grew tired of his frowny pout and hired me and Lee to lift the corners of his crumblin’ mouth.

18) If you were only one inch tall, you’d ride a worm to school.

19) The traffic light simply would not turn green, so the people stopped to wait as the traffic rolled and the wind blew cold, and the hour grew dark and late.

Answer: 1) simple sentence 2) simple sentence 3) compound sentence 4) complex sentence 5) complex sentence 6) simple sentence 7) compound sentence 8) complex sentence 9) simple sentence 10) complex sentence 11) simple sentence 12) complex sentence 13) compound-complex sentence 14) complex sentence 15) compound sentence 16) simple sentence 17) simple sentence 18) complex sentence 19) compound-complex sentence