How to Identify Gerund, Infinitive and Participle in English Grammar Easily
You've read the definitions. You know gerunds end in -ing. You even made notes. But then you sat in the exam hall, stared at that MCQ, and still had to guess.
That's the real problem with gerund, infinitive, and participle questions — not that students don't know the theory, but that they don't have a reliable way to identify these forms in a live sentence under pressure. And in competitive exams like SSC CGL, IBPS PO, or Bank PO, "almost right" still costs you marks.
I've taught English grammar to thousands of SSC and banking aspirants. And I'll tell you this honestly: 8 out of 10 students who struggle with this topic are making the same three mistakes — and none of them are the mistakes you'd expect.
In this guide, you're going to learn exactly how to identify a gerund, an infinitive, and a participle in any sentence — using a step-by-step method built around real SSC and Bank exam questions from 2021 to 2025. No vague theory. No rote memorization. Just a method that actually works.
To identify gerund, infinitive, and participle in English grammar: a gerund is a verb+ing form that acts as a noun (Swimming is fun); an infinitive is to + base verb acting as noun, adjective, or adverb (She wants to swim); a participle is a verb form (–ing or –ed) acting as an adjective (The swimming child / A broken chair). The key is to check the grammatical role the form plays in the sentence — not just how it looks.
Why Students Keep Getting This Wrong
Let me paint a picture you might recognize.
You're in your SSC CGL preparation phase. You've covered gerunds, infinitives, and participles in your grammar book. You feel okay about it — until you hit a question that looks like this:
Is "running" a gerund or a participle here?
And suddenly, the definition you memorized ("gerunds end in -ing") doesn't help at all. Because running in that sentence also ends in -ing — but it's a participle, not a gerund.
Here are the specific pain points I hear from students every single week:
- 🔴 Both gerunds and present participles end in –ing. How do you tell them apart just by looking?
- 🔴 Infinitives don't always have "to" in front of them. Bare infinitives exist — and exams love testing those.
- 🔴 Past participles look like simple past tense verbs. Students confuse "He painted the wall" (simple past) with "The painted wall looked beautiful" (participle).
- 🔴 The same word can function as three different things depending on the sentence — and definitions alone don't teach you how to spot that.
- 🔴 Under exam pressure, the confusion doubles. You second-guess yourself, switch answers, and lose marks you actually knew.
I know exactly how that feels. I've watched sharp, hardworking students lose 3–5 marks in the English section simply because they had no identification strategy — just definitions they'd memorized but couldn't apply.
But here's what most people get wrong: they think the solution is to memorize more rules. It isn't. The solution is learning to ask the right question about every sentence.
5 Common Mistakes That Cost Exam Marks
These aren't the obvious beginner errors. These are the subtle traps that even well-prepared students fall into.
This is the #1 mistake. Students see an –ing word and immediately label it a gerund. But "swimming" in "Swimming is healthy" (gerund — subject of the sentence) is completely different from "swimming" in "The swimming child won the race" (participle — modifying a noun). The ending is identical. The job in the sentence is not. Always ask: what role is this word playing?
Most students know "to + verb" as the infinitive form. But exams regularly test bare infinitives — infinitives without "to." After modal verbs (can, should, will, may) and certain verbs (let, make, help, watch), the base form of the verb is still an infinitive. In "She helped me finish the report," finish is a bare infinitive — and SSC has asked exactly this kind of question. Students who've only memorized "to + verb" miss this completely.
Once you see the Function vs. Form Framework laid out visually — the way it's organized in Gerunds vs Infinitives vs Participles — the pattern clicks almost immediately. Chapter 2 of the eBook maps every possible sentence role for each verbal, so you stop guessing and start recognizing.
Both use the same verb form (–ed for regular verbs), which makes this a sneaky trap. "He painted the wall" — here painted is the main verb in simple past. "The painted wall looked beautiful" — here painted is a past participle acting as an adjective. The difference? Check whether the word is doing the main verb job or modifying a noun. Exams like IBPS PO have tested this distinction directly.
Students learn that infinitives can function as nouns — "To win is great" — and then stop there. But infinitives also function as adjectives ("She has a dream to fulfil") and adverbs ("He came here to study"). In the SSC CGL fill-in-the-blank format, ignoring these functions leads to wrong answers on what should be easy marks.
This is the exam-pressure mistake. Students isolate the underlined word, try to identify it in a vacuum, and fail. The correct approach is always to read the entire sentence first, identify the main verb, and then ask what role the underlined form is playing relative to the rest of the sentence. Context is everything — and competitive exam setters know students skip it.
Step-by-Step Method to Identify Gerund, Infinitive, and Participle
Here's the system I teach. It's five steps, and it works on every type of sentence — whether you're staring at a fill-in-the-blank, an error-spotting question, or a direct identification MCQ.
Before you look at anything else, identify the main (finite) verb of the sentence — the verb that changes with tense, number, and person. Once you've found it, every other verb-like word in the sentence is a non-finite form: either a gerund, an infinitive, or a participle.
This one step eliminates 40% of the confusion immediately. You're no longer looking at the sentence as a jumble of words — you have an anchor.
Main verb = keeps (finite verb). So "running" is non-finite. Now move to Step 2.
Ask this single question: Is the non-finite word/phrase acting as a Noun, Adjective, or Adverb?
- Acting as a noun → It's a Gerund (if –ing form) or Infinitive
- Acting as an adjective → It's a Participle or Infinitive
- Acting as an adverb → It's an Infinitive
For any –ing word, try substituting it with a plain noun or a pronoun like "it" or "this." If the sentence still makes grammatical sense, the –ing word is a gerund. If the sentence breaks, it's a participle.
Test: "It/This is not advisable." ✅ Makes sense → Gerund.
"The swimming child looked tired."
Test: "The it/this child looked tired." ❌ Breaks → Participle.
Infinitives are usually easy to spot with "to" — but not always. After modal auxiliaries (can, could, will, would, should, may, might, must) and specific verbs like let, make, see, hear, help, watch, the base verb that follows is a bare infinitive.
"Leave" follows "let" → Bare Infinitive. ✅
"She came here to study for the exam."
"To study" modifies the verb "came" (tells why she came) → Infinitive used as Adverb. ✅
For –ed forms, ask: is this word modifying a noun? If yes — it's a participle. If it's the main action of the sentence performing tense duty — it's simple past. Participles always sit close to the noun they describe.
"Exhausted" describes "athlete" (noun modifier) → Past Participle (adjective role). ✅
"The athlete exhausted himself during training."
"Exhausted" is the main finite verb → Simple Past Tense. ✅
When you're unsure, run the verbal through this mental checklist:
| Verbal Type | Form | Sentence Role | Quick Test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gerund | Verb + –ing | Noun (subject/object/complement) | Replace with "it/this" — sentence holds? |
| Infinitive | to + base verb (or bare) | Noun, Adjective, or Adverb | Does it follow a modal or "let/make/help"? |
| Present Participle | Verb + –ing | Adjective (modifies noun) | Is it describing a noun nearby? |
| Past Participle | Verb + –ed/irregular | Adjective or part of perfect/passive | Can you place it before a noun naturally? |
The final step is the one most students skip entirely — and it's the most important for exam performance. After you've learned the identification method, you need to drill it on real MCQs until the process becomes automatic. Theory turns into marks only through deliberate, exam-format practice.
This is where students who score 45+ in English consistently outperform those who've studied the same rules. They don't think through the steps consciously anymore — they see the pattern instantly. That skill comes from repetition on the right kind of questions.
"Her ambition is to become a scientist."
"To become" follows "is" (linking verb) and acts as a noun (subject complement) → Infinitive used as Noun. ✅
If you want all seven techniques laid out in one place — with 50+ practice questions modeled on actual SSC and Bank exam patterns, answer explanations, and a pattern-recognition drill system — Gerunds vs Infinitives vs Participles walks you through each one step-by-step. It's designed to get you from "I sort of understand this" to "I can identify these in under 10 seconds." For just $9, it's the most targeted resource you'll find for this specific exam topic.
Real Student Story: From Guess to Confidence
Priya was preparing for SSC CGL 2023 and consistently scoring 28–30 in English. Her weak spot? The verbal identification questions — she was losing 3–4 marks there alone. When I worked through her mistakes, the pattern was clear: she was identifying gerunds and participles by their –ing ending instead of by their function in the sentence. Once she applied the Substitution Test and the Main Verb Anchor method, something clicked. She went back to her mock tests, reworked the verbal questions, and realized she'd been getting almost all of them wrong for the same reason. In her actual SSC CGL exam, she answered every verbal question correctly and cleared the English section with a score of 41. Same student. New approach.
You can do the same — here's how to start.
Expert Tips From a Grammar Mentor (That Textbooks Don't Tell You)
The position in the sentence is your first clue. Gerunds almost always appear at the beginning of a sentence (as subject), after a preposition, or after certain verbs (enjoy, avoid, keep, finish, practice). If you see an –ing word right after a preposition — "She is interested in learning" — it's a gerund, almost without exception. SSC CGL loves testing gerunds after prepositions.
The "dangling participle" trap is a favorite in error-spotting questions. A participle phrase must logically modify the subject of the main clause. "Walking down the road, a tree was seen." This is wrong — the tree wasn't walking. The subject should be the person walking. SSC CHSL 2023 had an error-spotting question built exactly around this. Knowing this turns what looks like a complex error into an instant identification.
Contrary to popular belief, infinitives are NOT just noun forms. In competitive exams, infinitives used as adverbs (expressing purpose) are tested more frequently than infinitives used as nouns. "She studied hard to pass the exam." Here, "to pass" tells us why she studied — adverb of purpose. Most students never learn this, so they get the identification wrong on what should be a straightforward mark.
Irregular past participles are the stealth trap in Bank exams. For irregular verbs, the past participle doesn't end in –ed. Written, broken, stolen, spoken, driven — these are past participles, not simple past forms (wrote, broke, stole, spoke, drove). IBPS PO has tested this distinction in both error-spotting and fill-in-the-blank formats. Build a quick mental list of your high-frequency irregular participles before the exam.
You don't need to memorize 50 rules. You need to master three questions. After teaching this topic for years, I'm convinced that most of the theory-heavy approaches to gerunds, infinitives, and participles are counterproductive for exam preparation. Students who score highest don't know more rules — they have a cleaner decision-making process. Three questions: What is the main verb? What role is this form playing? Does the substitution test confirm it? That's the entire method.
Tip 5 is exactly the philosophy behind Gerunds vs Infinitives vs Participles. The eBook includes a one-page shortcut reference table — the three questions, the identification framework, and the most-tested patterns from SSC and Bank exams — all in one place. Students have told me they revisit that single page the night before their exam to lock in their approach. Grab your copy here →
You're Closer Than You Think
Here's the core insight: gerunds, infinitives, and participles are not three separate topics you need to study in isolation. They're three possible roles that a verb can play — and once you train yourself to look for the role rather than the form, identification becomes almost automatic.
The method is simple. Find the main verb. Ask what role the non-finite form is playing. Apply the substitution or adjective test to confirm. Practice on real exam questions until the recognition is instant.
By the time your exam arrives, these questions won't feel like traps. They'll feel like free marks.
Ready to Never Get This Wrong Again?
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