Questions

A statement is a sentence that tells  you something. A question  is a sentence that asks  you something. A statement does not require an answer. A question requires an answer.

A written question in English always ends with a question mark: ?

Question Structure

The basic structure of a question is:

Look at these example sentences. They all have the auxiliary verb before the subject:

Exception!  For the main verb be  in Present Simple and Past Simple, there is no auxiliary verb. Look at these example sentences. They all have the main verb before the subject:

Question Types

There are three basic question types:

• Yes/No: the answer is "yes or no"
• Question-word: the answer is "information"
• Choice: the answer is "in the question"

We look at these in more detail below.

Yes/No questions

Sometimes the only answer that we need is yes or no. Look at these examples:

Exception!  Main verb be  in Present Simple and Past Simple:

Question-word questions

Sometimes we want more than yes or no for an answer. When asking for information, we usually place a question-word at the beginning of the sentence. The question-word indicates the information that we want,for example: 

where (place), when (time), why (reason), who (person).

Look at these examples:

*When the question-word is who , it acts as the subject.
**In Present Simple and Past Simple tenses, there is no auxiliary verb with who.

Exception.  Main verb be  in Present Simple and Past Simple:

Choice questions

Sometimes we give our listener a choice. We ask them to choose between two possible answers. So their answer is (usually) already in the question. Look at these examples:

Exception.  Main verb be  in Present Simple and Past Simple:

sources : Original Link