TOEIC Verb Forms: Eight Trigger Words That Decide the Answer Before You Read the Options
Verb form is one of the easiest things the TOEIC tests. Of the 16,214 questions eng-test.com analysed, 633 test it, 45.5% of those are rated easy and only 6.0% are hard — the lowest hard rate of any grammar cluster in the bank. The reason is that the answer is almost never about meaning. One word before the blank decides it, and there are only eight of them worth knowing.
What does a TOEIC verb-form question test?
Which shape a verb takes, not which verb it is. In eng-test.com’s analysis of 16,214 TOEIC-style Reading questions, 633 test verb form. In a typical item the four options are the same verb in four shapes — submit, submitting, submitted, to submit — so no amount of vocabulary helps. One word earlier in the sentence decides the answer.
The skill labels in the bank show exactly which trigger each item is built around. Almost every label names the word that comes before the blank rather than a tense.
| What the label says | Questions |
|---|---|
| Grammar: verb forms | 46 |
| Grammar: verb form | 40 |
| Grammar: verb forms after modal verbs | 38 |
| Grammar: verb forms after 'to' | 35 |
| Grammar: infinitive verb form | 31 |
| Grammar: verb forms after modals | 29 |
| Grammar: verb forms (infinitive) | 25 |
| Grammar: present perfect tense | 24 |
Only 24 of the 633 items are labelled as testing a tense. This is a pattern-matching cluster, not a tense cluster — which is why it can be learned in an afternoon.
Which trigger words decide the verb form?
Eight of them cover essentially all of it. Find the trigger immediately before the blank, apply the rule, and stop reading the options. This table is the whole cluster.
| If the blank comes… | Use this form | Example | The trap option |
|---|---|---|---|
| after a modal (will, must, should, can) | base form | All staff must **submit** the form. | must submitted / must to submit |
| after 'to' (infinitive) | base form | We agreed to **extend** the deadline. | to extending / to extended |
| after a preposition (in, for, by, before, without) | -ing (gerund) | Thank you for **submitting** the report. | for submit / for to submit |
| after have / has / had | past participle | The board has **approved** the budget. | has approve / has approving |
| after be (am, is, are, was, were) | -ing or past participle | The audit was **postponed**. | was postpone |
| after make / let / help someone | base form | This will help staff **understand** the policy. | help to understanding |
| after look forward to / be used to | -ing (gerund) | We look forward to **hearing** from you. | look forward to hear |
| after a subject, as the main verb | a tensed form | The manager **reviews** the figures weekly. | The manager reviewing |
The right-hand column is where the marks are lost. The exam always includes at least one option that would be correct after a different trigger — “to submitting” exists only to catch someone who saw “submitting” and stopped.
How easy are verb-form questions really?
They are the easiest grammar cluster in the bank. 45.5% of the 633 verb-form questions are rated easy and only 6.0% hard — lower than prepositions at 6.1%, passive voice at 13.0% and word-form choice at 25.7%. If you want marks per hour of study, this is where they are.
| Grammar cluster | Questions | Easy | Hard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Verb form | 633 | 45.5% | 6.0% |
| Prepositions | 980 | 40.3% | 6.1% |
| Passive voice | 455 | 32.5% | 13.0% |
| Word form and part-of-speech choice | 2,140 | 23.1% | 25.7% |
The contrast with word-form choice is the useful part. Both look like “grammar” on a study plan, but choosing between submit and submitting is mechanical, while choosing between effective and efficient is a vocabulary judgement. Adjective and adverb choice is 13.2% of the bank and four times harder — do this cluster first.
Which verbs actually appear in these questions?
The same business verbs as everywhere else in the bank. The form is what is tested, but the verb chosen to test it is drawn from the ordinary workplace set, which means practising verb form also rehearses your collocations.
| Verb | Times it is the answer |
|---|---|
| improve | 34 |
| submit | 25 |
| enhance | 23 |
| present | 20 |
| developing | 13 |
| managed | 12 |
| extend | 11 |
| review | 11 |
improve, submit and enhance lead here exactly as they lead the verb-choice cluster, where verb choice is the most-tested skill at 2,597 questions. Learning a verb with its noun and its forms at the same time is therefore doubly efficient.
How should you practise verb form?
By finding the trigger before you read the options. This is a habit, not knowledge — the rules take ten minutes to learn and a week of drilling to make automatic under time pressure.
- Cover the four options. Read only the words immediately before the blank.
- Name the trigger out loud: modal, to, preposition, have, be. If there is no trigger, the blank is the main verb and needs a tense.
- Predict the form before you uncover the options. If your prediction is there, take it.
- When you miss one, write down the trigger you overlooked rather than the verb you got wrong. The verb is never the problem.
- Drill in complete items — Part 5 question types and tactics covers the other Part 5 families, and the free 5-question sample mixes them.
A verb-form item carries an estimated 37.2 seconds as a grammar item. If you are spending longer than that, you are reading the options first — which is the habit this cluster punishes.
How reliable are these figures?
These count eng-test.com’s own bank, not official ETS papers, which are not public. Difficulty is the rating each item carries in the bank on a consistent internal scale, so read “6.0% hard” as a comparison against the other clusters here rather than as an official statistic about the real exam. Skill labels are assigned one per question, so the 633 is a count of labels.
Figures come from a 16,214-question snapshot of the active Reading pool inside eng-test.com’s bank of 20,000+ original items, taken on 10 July 2026 and re-counted on 26 September 2026. eng-test.com is independent and not affiliated with ETS or the official TOEIC test. Methodology: our analysis of 16,214 TOEIC Reading questions. Exam format: the complete guide to the TOEIC test.
Frequently asked questions
What form of the verb comes after a modal like must or will?
- The base form. Must submit, will extend, should review — never must submitted or will to extend. This is the single most common verb-form trigger in the analysed set, with 67 questions across two labels.
Is it "for submit" or "for submitting"?
- For submitting. After any preposition — for, in, by, before, without — an English verb takes the -ing form. The bank has 143 questions on gerunds after prepositions across two labels.
Are TOEIC verb-form questions hard?
- No, they are the easiest grammar cluster in the bank. Of 633 verb-form questions, 45.5% are rated easy and only 6.0% hard, against 25.7% hard for adjective and adverb choice.
Do I need to know all twelve tenses for the TOEIC?
- Not for this cluster. Only 24 of the 633 verb-form questions are labelled as testing a tense; the rest test which shape follows a trigger word such as a modal, to, or a preposition.
Why are all four options the same verb?
- Because the item tests form, not meaning. Submit, submitting, submitted and to submit all mean the same thing, so vocabulary cannot help — only the trigger word before the blank decides which is correct.
What comes after "look forward to"?
- The -ing form: we look forward to hearing from you. The "to" here is a preposition, not an infinitive marker, which is why look forward to hear is wrong — a classic TOEIC trap.
How long should a verb-form question take?
- About 37 seconds, the estimated solve time for a grammar item in the analysed bank. If it is taking longer you are reading the four options before finding the trigger, which is the slower order.
Which verbs appear most in verb-form questions?
- The ordinary business set: improve is the answer 34 times, submit 25 and enhance 23. They are the same verbs that lead the verb-choice cluster, so practising form also rehearses collocation.