These questions ask you to complete or recognize verb-preposition combinations. Some are fixed collocations, while others change with meaning, so identify both the verb and the role of the words that follow it.
Learn the whole verb frame
Store a dependent preposition with its verb, not as a free word. A schedule depends on staffing, you can rely on a colleague, and a coat belongs to its owner. Listen to a speaker and wait for a reply. Depend upon is also correct in a more formal style, as is insist upon beside the more usual insist on.
| Meaning signal | Verb frame and example |
|---|---|
| Something is determined by a condition | Depend on or depend upon: The route depends on road conditions. |
| Trust, ownership, attention or expectation | Rely on a friend; belong to a club; listen to the guide; wait for news. |
| The thing you seek | Apply for: apply for a permit. |
| The person or institution receiving a request | Apply to: apply to the council. |
| Sharing a person's view | Agree with: agree with your neighbour. |
| Giving consent to a plan or proposal | Agree to: agree to the new schedule. |
| Settling a detail jointly | Agree on: agree on a route. |
| Firmly demanding an action | Insist on or insist upon plus an -ing form: insist on checking. |
| Successfully completing an action | Succeed in plus an -ing form: succeed in solving the puzzle. |
Common traps
| Tempting route | How to reject it |
|---|---|
| Dropping the preposition after listen or wait | English requires listen to before what receives attention and wait for before the person or thing expected. To before a noun does not replace for after wait. |
| Choosing apply by habit instead of by role | Ask whether the noun is sought or receives the application. Use for for the sought thing and to for the receiver. |
| Using one agree frame for every meaning | Match the relationship: with a person or view, to a proposal that receives consent, and on a detail settled jointly. |
| Using with or at after belong | For ownership or membership, keep belong to as one unit. Other nearby place words do not express that relation. |
| Following succeed with an infinitive or the wrong gerund frame | For successful completion of doing something, use succeed in plus an -ing form. Succeed at can introduce a noun activity, as in succeed at chess, but that is a different frame. |
Try it
Complete using exactly insisted, on or upon, and paying: Despite our offer to help, Lena ___ the bill herself.
You can trust Mei to keep the spare key safe. Choose the standard collocation.
- You can rely in Mei.
- You can rely on Mei.
- You can rely at Mei.
- You can rely to Mei.
Select all that apply: which sentences use agree correctly when two sides jointly settle a detail, rather than consent to a value proposed by someone else?
- After negotiating, the buyers and sellers agreed to a final price.
- After negotiating, the buyers and sellers agreed on a final price.
- The two carriers agreed with the proposed delivery date.
- The two carriers agreed on the delivery date together.