The Same Word as Different Parts of Speech

Many common English words change their part of speech according to their position and function in a sentence. In this topic, the same spelling is studied through clear sentence pairs so that a candidate can identify whether the word is working as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, or conjunction.

• Do not decide the part of speech from the spelling alone; decide it from the word's function in the sentence.
• If the word names a person, place, thing, idea, state, or action as a thing, it is usually a noun.
• If the word shows an action or a state controlled by the subject, it is a verb.
• If the word qualifies a noun, it is an adjective; if it qualifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb, it is an adverb.
• Some words such as before, after, since, and over may work as prepositions, conjunctions, or adverbs depending on what follows them.