Types of interrogative sentences with examples

• WH-questions are the best examples of interrogative sentences. The “wh-questions” are what, who, when, why, where, and how and they don’t just ask to elicit a yes or a no answer. These questions look for a more specific answer.

Examples:

What are you doing?
Who painted these walls?
When is the party?
Why did you send the parcel to a different person?
Where is the team building venue?
How do I get to the train station?

What is used to ask about a specific information; who is used to ask about a person; when is used to ask about time or date of an event; why is used to ask for reasons; where is used to ask for a place or location of someone or something; and how is used to ask about the process of doing something.

Indeed, the “wh-questions” are the simplest forms of interrogative sentences.

• Yes/No questions are interrogative sentences that elicit a “yes” or “no” answer. They don’t look for specific answers, just a yes or a no.

 Examples:           

            Do you like swimming?
            Can you paint?
            Are you going to the party?
            Did she receive my email?
            May I come in?
            Have you ever been to Canada?

Notice that the examples above use auxiliary verbs to ask a question.

• Tag questions are also interrogative sentences that state a positive and a negative idea. An example of this is “They watched a movie, didn’t they?” The structure is positive statement, negative statement. Notice that there is a main declarative sentence and a tag question.

 Examples:

She is so pretty, isn’t she?
You are so proud of her, aren’t you?
Mom can’t visit her friend, can she?
You didn’t go to the doctor, did you?

Interrogative sentences using tag questions follow a structure and we can easily identify them because of they are formed. Tag questions use auxiliary or modal verbs in English to ask the question.

• Choice questions ask about something using options. The conjunction “or” is present in all choice questions. You can answer either Yes or No or a specific choice from the question.

Examples:

Do you like banana or apple?
Is she coming with us or not?
Where do you want to go on your next holiday: Hawaii or Singapore?
Who presented during the meeting? Mark, John, Sheila, Emmy, or Michelle?

In continuous tenses, interrogative sentences follow this structure: be verbs (am/is/was/are/were) + subject (noun/pronoun) + present participle.

Examples:

Am I giving you a headache?
Is he delivering his speech today?
Are you listening to me?
Was Mr. Johnson checking the files when the clients arrived?
Were they claiming their pay before the president came?

Notice that these sentences are answerable by a Yes or a No.

Interrogative sentences are purely asking questions but they also have to follow the correct grammar structure in sentences.