What are prepositions?
Prepositions are descriptive words that give information about the relationship that nouns, noun phrases or pronouns have with other words in a sentence.
We can also say that the role of prepositions is to describe the relationship between objects.
Prepositions may give information about things like location, direction or time.
They answer questions about ‘where‘, ‘when‘ and ‘how‘ things are related in time and space.
Prepositions always introduce a phrase.
Prepositions of location - examples
In
Trevor the rabbit lives in Daisy’s garden.
‘In’ is a preposition that describes the relationship between the noun ‘rabbit’ and the noun phrase ‘Daisy’s garden’.
Under
I keep all my favourite books under my bed.
‘Under’ is a preposition that describes the relationship between ‘books’ and ‘my bed’.
More examples of prepositions of location
Next to
We live next to a famous singer.
Beside
I always keep a glass of water beside my bed.
On
“Please take out your books and put them on the desk!”
Above
Roland loves to fly above the clouds in his plane.
Prepositions of direction - examples
Around
Clive is driving slowly around the roundabout.
Down
Once you go down the escalator, you’ll find the station.
Across
The sailors sailed across the English Channel.
Up
Eric is climbing up the tree.
Towards
We were travelling towards America.
Prepositions of time - examples
At
The boy woke up at 7 o’clock.
In
We will begin in 5 minutes.
On
We can play table tennis on Thursday.
Other prepositions of time include ‘before‘ and ‘after‘.
Do you need to know about prepositions for the 11+ exams?
Questions on prepositions can often come up in 11+ English exams.
It is also important for students to understand how to spot prepositions and how to use them in writing tasks.
Knowledge of prepositions is useful for English and Verbal Reasoning exams at 11 Plus.
Try our expert 11+ English practice papers for questions on prepositions and for excellent testing of the 11+ English syllabus!
