Students should refer to the following Question Tag Rules of English Grammar. These rules have been designed by expert English teachers to help students appearing in English Exams in schools or competitive examinations. You should remember the following Question Tag Rules so that you can use them correctly and score good marks in examinations. You should refer to all Rules of English Grammar provided by us to strengthen your understanding.

Question Tag Rules English Grammar

Question tag making facts:-
1. Both sentence and question tag must be in same tense
2. Sentence and question tag are always opposite ( If sentence is positive then question tag has to be negative & vice versa )
3. In question tag always pronoun is used.
4. For negative question tag always use the contracted form like hadn’t, won’t etc.

Rules for question tag:-
Rule 1– For ‘am not’ there is no contracted form, here we use ‘aren’t’ Ex- I am absolutely fine, aren’t I ?

Rule 2- Everybody, each, no one, every, none, nobody, everyone are singular and will take singular verb / Singular pronoun/ Singular adjective with them but their question tag has to have plural verb and plural pronoun
Ex- Everyone has eaten their food, haven’t they?

Rule 3- With collective noun we use singular verb and similarly in question tag also we use singular pronoun
Ex- The jury has given its verdict, hasn’t it?

Rule 4- With words that have negative meaning for e.g. – Scarcely, rarely, barely, Hardly etc we use positive question tag
Ex- He Hardly goes for picnic, does he ?

Rule 5- When sentence starts with ‘let us/ Let’s’, we use ‘shall we’ in the question tag
Ex- Let us drink tonight, shall we ?

Rule 6- In case of imperative sentence , we use ‘won’t you’ in the question tag
Ex- Go out, won’t you ?

But if something is offered to somebody or someone is asked to do something then we use ‘will you / would you’ in the question tag
Ex- Have some more pasta, would you?

And when there is impatience involved we use ‘can’t you’ in the question tag.
Ex- Shut your mouth, Can’t you ?

Rule 7- When ‘there’ is used in the starting of the sentence then ‘there’ is used in the question tag in the place of pronoun
Ex- There is no milk to drink, is there ?

Rule 8- When we talk about individual members of the collective noun or there is a difference in opinion among the members of the collective noun, then plural verbs and plural pronouns are used and hence question tag will be used accordingly.
Ex- The committee are divided in their opinion, aren’t they?

Rule 9- Question tag should always be made in accordance with the main part of the sentence.
Ex- I think, she is wrong, isn’t she? (Here main part is not ‘I think’ as it is not important. Main part is ‘she is wrong’ so question tag will be acc. To this only)