What Are Adjectives?: WASSCE English Language

Take a noun and a verb and you have the bones of a sentence. Aminata walked. That tells you who and what. But it tells you almost nothing else. How did she walk? Where? When? With what feeling? Add words that describe the noun and the verb, and the sentence comes alive.

Aminata walked.
The tall Aminata walked.
The tall, tired Aminata walked slowly down the dusty road.

The words that describe nouns — tall, tired, dusty — are adjectives. They give colour, size, shape, feeling, and detail to the nouns they modify. Without adjectives, language could only point and label. With them, it can describe.

This lesson opens the Adjectives topic. We cover what an adjective is, where it sits in a sentence, the simple tests for identifying one, and why adjectives matter in WAEC English.

Definition

An adjective is a word that describes or modifies a noun or a pronoun. It tells you what kind, which one, how many, or whose. Adjectives add detail: a big house, three bright stars, her old phone, an honest answer.

What adjectives describe

Every adjective answers one of these questions about a noun.

What kind?

Most adjectives describe a quality.

a tall boy
a red dress
an honest man
a dusty road
a delicious meal
the angry customer

Which one?

Demonstrative adjectives point to a specific noun.

this book
that house
these students
those cars

How many?

Quantity adjectives count or estimate.

three brothers
several visitors
many books
few students
some water
all the children

Whose?

Possessive adjectives show ownership. (We covered these in the Pronouns topic.)

my brother
your house
her phone
their car

Where adjectives sit in a sentence

Adjectives appear in two main positions.

Position 1 — Before the noun (attributive position)

The adjective sits directly in front of the noun it modifies.

the big house
a tall student
those expensive shoes
Aminata's favourite book

This is the default position for most adjectives in English. You can stack several adjectives in front of one noun:

a big red shiny new car
the tall, intelligent, hard-working student

Lesson 3 covers the order of adjectives when you use more than one.

Position 2 — After a linking verb (predicative position)

After a linking verb (be, seem, become, feel, look, taste, smell, sound, appear, remain), the adjective describes the subject.

Aminata is tall.
The mangoes taste sweet.
Foday looks tired.
The students remained quiet.
The soup smells delicious.
Her dress seems new.

In this position, the adjective is called a subject complement. We covered this in the Verbs topic, Lesson 6.

Adjectives that can sit in only one position

Most adjectives work in either position. A few only work in one.

Attributive-only adjectives (only before the noun)

Some adjectives sound wrong after a linking verb.

✓ the main reason / ❌ the reason is main
✓ the only way / ❌ the way is only
✓ an utter disaster / ❌ the disaster is utter
✓ the former president / ❌ the president is former

WAEC rarely tests these, but you should recognise them.

Predicative-only adjectives (only after a linking verb)

Some adjectives — usually those beginning with a- — appear only in predicative position.

✓ The baby is asleep. / ❌ the asleep baby (use the sleeping baby instead)
✓ The students are awake. / ❌ the awake students
✓ The teachers are aware of the problem. / ❌ the aware teachers
✓ He is afraid of dogs. / ❌ the afraid boy (use the frightened boy)
✓ The team is alive to the danger. / ❌ the alive team

When you need to modify the noun directly, switch to a different adjective: sleeping, frightened, lively.

How to identify an adjective

Three tests catch almost every adjective.

Test 1 — The noun test

Can the word sit immediately before a noun and describe it?

tall boy ✓ → tall is an adjective
honest man ✓ → honest is an adjective
quickly run — quickly does not describe run; quickly is an adverb, not an adjective

Test 2 — The linking verb test

Can the word follow is, are, was, were, seems, becomes and describe the subject?

Aminata is tall. ✓ → tall is an adjective
The mangoes taste sweet. ✓ → sweet is an adjective
He runs quickly. — quickly describes runs, not the subject; quickly is an adverb

Test 3 — The comparison test

Most adjectives can be made comparative (-er or more) or superlative (-est or most).

tall → taller → tallest ✓ → adjective
honest → more honest → most honest ✓ → adjective
quickly → more quickly → most quickly — quickly compares, but in the form of an adverb, not an adjective

We cover comparison in detail in Lessons 4 and 5.

Worked example

Identify the adjective(s) in each sentence and the noun each describes.

The tall boy walked slowly down the dusty road.
Aminata bought a beautiful red dress.
The mangoes are sweet and ripe.
That book is interesting.
Foday gave his mother three large parcels.
The honest farmer worked hard.

Work through each:

tall (describes boy); dusty (describes road). slowly is an adverb (describes walked), not an adjective.
beautiful, red (both describe dress)
sweet, ripe (both describe mangoes — predicative position after are)
interesting (describes book — predicative position after is); That is a demonstrative adjective (describes book)
three (quantity adjective — describes parcels); large (quality adjective — describes parcels); his (possessive adjective — describes mother)
honest (describes farmer)

How an adjective is different from an adverb

The distinction trips up many students. The simple rule:

Adjective modifies a noun or pronoun: a fast car, she is fast.
Adverb modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb: she runs fast, the car is very fast.

Most adverbs end in -ly (quickly, slowly, beautifully). Most adjectives do not (quick, slow, beautiful). But there are exceptions in both directions, so the form alone is not a reliable test.

She gave a friendly smile. — friendly ends in -ly but is an adjective (it describes smile).
He runs fast. — fast does not end in -ly but is an adverb here (it describes runs).

Use the function test: what is the word describing? If a noun, adjective. If a verb or another modifier, adverb. We cover this in detail in the Adverbs topic.

In Sierra Leone

A paragraph about a market scene shows adjectives doing different jobs:

Aminata walked through the busy market in Lumley. Fresh mangoes, golden plantains, and dark green cassava leaves were piled high on wooden tables. The traders, loud and friendly, called out their prices. One old woman sold dried fish from a small basket. Hungry customers haggled with eager sellers under the hot sun. By midday, Aminata had filled her bag with everything she needed.

Adjectives used:

Quality: busy, fresh, golden, dark green, wooden, loud, friendly, old, dried, small, hungry, eager, hot
Quantity: one
Possessive: their, her
Past participle as adjective: dried (from dry)
Comparative position — attributive: most are placed before nouns
Predicative: loud and friendly (after the implied were)

Every adjective adds specific detail. Strip them all out and the paragraph becomes thin: Aminata walked through the market. Mangoes, plantains, and cassava leaves were on tables. The traders called out prices...

Why adjectives matter in WAEC English

Adjectives are tested directly in WAEC objectives and indirectly in essays. Three reasons they matter:

1. Essay marking. A weak essay uses few adjectives or repeats the same ones. A strong essay uses specific, varied adjectives. The difference is visible to a marker in the first paragraph.

2. Comprehension. Comprehension passages often hinge on adjectives that describe character, mood, or setting. Questions ask about how the writer felt — adjectives carry the answer.

3. Lexis and Structure. Adjective form, comparison, position, and order all appear in objective questions. Each is mechanical and predictable once you know the rules.

Common mistake

Three early errors to watch for:

1. Adverb in adjective position.

❌ She is a quickly worker.
✓ She is a quick worker. (adjective before noun)
✓ She works quickly. (adverb describes verb)

2. Adjective in adverb position.

❌ He runs quick.
✓ He runs quickly. (adverb describes the verb runs)

3. Misplaced adjective with linking verb.

❌ The food tastes deliciously.
✓ The food tastes delicious. (linking verb takes adjective, not adverb — covered in Verbs topic, Lesson 6)

WAEC tests this

Adjectives appear in WAEC in many patterns:

Identify the adjective in a sentence and the noun it describes.
Position and order of multiple adjectives in front of a noun (Lesson 3).
Adjective vs adverb choice — He works (quick / quickly). (covered in Adverbs topic too)
Comparison forms — comparative and superlative (Lessons 4 and 5).
Participial adjectives — -ing vs -ed (Lesson 6).
Error identification — wrong form of comparison, wrong order, wrong type of adjective.

The rules are all mechanical. Once learned, they apply the same way every time.

Quick self-check

Identify each adjective and the noun it describes. Answers below.

The new building has fifteen large windows.
Aminata is very tall and quite clever.
Foday gave his sister three colourful books.
The angry crowd shouted loudly at the speaker.
Mariama prefers cold drinks to hot tea on sunny days.

Answers

new (describes building), fifteen (describes windows), large (describes windows)
tall (describes Aminata), clever (describes Aminata) — both predicative
his (describes sister), three (describes books), colourful (describes books)
angry (describes crowd) — loudly is an adverb, not an adjective
cold (describes drinks), hot (describes tea), sunny (describes days)

What's next

In the next lesson we cover the types of adjectives — descriptive, demonstrative, possessive, indefinite, interrogative, numerical, and proper. Each type does a specific job, and WAEC tests recognition of all of them.

What Are Adjectives?