Year 4 English Practice Questions and Topics
Year 4 English (ages 8–9) continues building on prefixes and suffixes with more complex and less common examples, and adds fronted adverbials — phrases at the start of a sentence that describe when, where or how something happens, followed by a comma (like "Later that evening, she finished her homework"). This is usually the first genuinely new sentence-structure device children learn, beyond simply joining clauses with conjunctions. Homophones continue to expand, word classes are applied with more precision, direct speech punctuation becomes more demanding (multiple speakers, more varied reporting clauses), and vocabulary and comprehension work both step up in sophistication, moving toward inferring a character's feelings or motives rather than just events.
By the end of Year 4, a child should use a fronted adverbial correctly, punctuated with a comma, punctuate a short exchange of direct speech between two speakers, correctly identify all four core word classes in a sentence, and make a reasonable inference about a character's feelings from a text, supported by evidence from it.
The most common difficulty is fronted adverbials — specifically remembering the comma after them, which is easy to forget because it doesn't correspond to a natural pause in speech the way some other punctuation does, and children often write a technically correct fronted adverbial but drop the comma consistently until it's practised as a specific, separate habit. The second frequent struggle is inference in comprehension: children can usually retrieve facts stated directly in a text confidently, but "reading between the lines" — working out something the text implies rather than states — is a distinct skill that needs its own explicit practice, not just more reading.
This year's sentence-structure and inference work sets up Year 5, where relative clauses and more sophisticated cohesion devices are introduced, and where comprehension increasingly expects a child to justify an inference with a specific quotation, not just a general impression.
Parents can help most by modelling fronted adverbials naturally in conversation and pointing them out in shared reading, and by asking "how do you think they're feeling, and how do you know?" after stories — the second half of that question, asking for evidence, is what actually builds the inference skill.
10 topics · 95 practice questions available
Topics covered
Y4e Prefixes Suffixes
10 questionsY4e Prefixes Suffixes
Y4e Homophones
10 questionsY4e Homophones
Y4e Apostrophes
10 questionsY4e Apostrophes
Y4e Word Classes
10 questionsY4e Word Classes
Y4e Fronted Adverbials
10 questionsY4e Fronted Adverbials
Y4e Direct Speech
6 questionsY4e Direct Speech
Y4e Paragraphs
10 questionsY4e Paragraphs
Y4e Vocabulary
10 questionsY4e Vocabulary
Y4e Punctuation
9 questionsY4e Punctuation
Y4e Comprehension
10 questionsY4e Comprehension
Sample questions by topic
18 sample questions across every topic above — a small slice of the full bank, with the answer and full explanation shown for each.
Y4e Prefixes Suffixes
Which word means 'not possible'?
- unpossible
- dispossible
- impossible✓ Correct
- repossible
Why: The prefix im means not before words starting with p.
Which word means 'to build again'?
- unbuild
- disbuild
- rebuild✓ Correct
- misbuild
Why: The prefix re means again.
Add -ation to ADORE.
- adoreation
- adoretion
- adoration✓ Correct
- adorasion
Why: Adore drops the e before ation.
Add -sion or -tion: 'to divide' becomes...
- division✓ Correct
- divition
- divizion
- divishion
Why: Words ending in de often take sion: division.
Y4e Homophones
Fill the gap: The bird flew to ___ nest.
- its'
- its✓ Correct
- it is
- it's
Why: Its shows belonging and takes no apostrophe.
Fill the gap: Please ___ the letter to me.
- read✓ Correct
- reed
- red
- rede
Why: Read means to look at words; red is a colour.
Fill the gap: They ate ___ dinner quickly.
- thier
- there
- their✓ Correct
- they're
Why: Their shows the dinner belongs to them.
Fill the gap: The medicine had a strange ___.
- affect
- affekt
- effect✓ Correct
- efect
Why: Effect is the noun; affect is the verb.
Y4e Apostrophes
What is the short form of DID NOT?
- didn't✓ Correct
- didn't'
- did'nt
- didnt
Why: Did not shortens to didn't.
Which shows a playground belonging to many girls?
- the girls' playground✓ Correct
- the girls's playground
- the girl's playground
- the girls playground
Why: For plurals ending in s, the apostrophe goes after the s.
Which shows a book belonging to James?
- Jame's book
- James book's
- James's book✓ Correct
- Jamess book
Why: For a name ending in s we usually add apostrophe s.
Which shows a staff room belonging to many teachers?
- the teachers's room
- the teachers room
- the teachers' room✓ Correct
- the teacher's room
Why: Plural teachers ends in s, so the apostrophe follows it.
Y4e Word Classes
In 'The enormous whale dived deeply', which word is the adjective?
- dived
- enormous✓ Correct
- whale
- deeply
Why: Enormous describes the whale.
In 'The cat slept under the warm blanket', which word is the preposition?
- cat
- warm
- under✓ Correct
- slept
Why: Under tells us where the cat slept.
Y4e Fronted Adverbials
Which sentence uses a fronted adverbial correctly?
- Later that day, we went home.✓ Correct
- Later that day we went home.
- Later that day. We went home.
- Later, that day we went home.
Why: The comma goes after the whole adverbial phrase.
Which sentence has a fronted adverbial of MANNER?
- The silent fox crept.
- The fox crept forward.
- Silently, the fox crept forward.✓ Correct
- Forward crept the fox.
Why: Silently tells us how, and it comes first.
Y4e Direct Speech
When a new person speaks, what should a writer do?
- use a colon
- use brackets
- use capitals only
- start a new line✓ Correct
Why: Each new speaker begins on a new line.
Y4e Paragraphs
Which connective introduces a contrasting idea?
- However✓ Correct
- Firstly
- Meanwhile
- Also
Why: However signals a contrast.
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