6 kinds of adjectives that a Class 7 kid must know ! (with Examples)

Class 7 grammar books list six kinds of adjectives. Most students can recite them. Where marks are actually lost is in using them: writing “less friends”, “a ten years old boy” or “the film was very boring and I was very boring too”. So this post covers the six kinds briefly, then spends most of its time on the mistakes.

The six kinds at a glance

Kind	What it tells you	Examples
Quality	What kind of thing it is	an honest man, a precious gem, Indian food
Quantity	How much (things you can’t count)	some milk, enough time, little water
Number	How many, or in what order (things you can count)	five books, many students, the second row, each player
Demonstrative	Which one	this car, those buildings
Interrogative	Asks about a noun	Which book? Whose pen? What colour?
Possessive	Whose it is	my cycle, their house

Two notes on the table. Adjectives made from proper nouns, like Indian, Shakespearean or Victorian, are adjectives of quality, and they always take a capital letter. Some newer grammar books group demonstrative, possessive and number words under a separate heading called determiners, together with the articles a, an and the. Both systems describe the same words, so go with whichever one your school textbook uses.

Mistake 1: “less” with things you can count

Wrong: There were less people at the match today. Right: There were fewer people at the match today.

This is the quantity-versus-number split from the table. If you can count the thing (people, books, mistakes), use few, fewer, many. If you can’t (water, time, noise), use little, less, much.

Fewer chocolates, less chocolate. Many coins, much money.

Mistake 2: mixing up “few”, “a few” and “the few”

These look almost the same, but they mean quite different things.

Few means hardly any. The tone is negative. Few students finished the test. (Most didn’t.)
A few means some, a small number. The tone is positive. A few students finished the test. (Some did.)
The few means all of the small number there are. The few students who finished got extra marks.

Little, a little and the little work the same way for things you can’t count. I have little time means hardly any, while I have a little time means some.

Mistake 3: “bored” and “boring”

Wrong: I was boring in the maths class. Right: I was bored in the maths class. (That’s how you felt.) Right: The maths class was boring. (That’s what caused the feeling.)

Adjectives ending in -ed describe how someone feels. Adjectives ending in -ing describe the thing that causes the feeling. The same pattern covers interested / interesting, excited / exciting, tired / tiring, confused / confusing. Students tend to fix this pair faster by saying sentences out loud than by filling in worksheets, which is why a spoken English course like Unbox English spends so much class time on conversation.

Mistake 4: compound adjectives before a noun

Wrong: He is a ten years old boy. Right: He is a ten-year-old boy. Right: The boy is ten years old.

When two or more words join to describe a noun that comes after them, they’re hyphenated and the noun inside doesn’t take a plural: a ten-year-old boy, a five-star hotel, a well-known author. When the description comes after the noun, there are no hyphens: the boy is ten years old.

Mistake 5: “very” with extreme adjectives

Wrong: The water is very boiling. Right: The water is absolutely boiling.

Most adjectives can be made stronger or weaker: a bit cold, very cold, extremely cold. These are gradable adjectives. Some adjectives already mean “very” on their own: boiling (very hot), freezing (very cold), enormous, terrified, delicious. These are extreme adjectives, and “very” sounds wrong with them. Use absolutely or really instead: absolutely freezing, really delicious.

A third group can’t be graded at all, because something either is or isn’t: dead, empty, unique, finished. “Very unique” is a common error, since unique already means “the only one”.

Mistake 6: “elder” and “older”

Wrong: My sister is elder than me. Right: My sister is older than me. Right: She is my elder sister.

Elder and eldest are used for family members, and only before a noun (my elder brother, the eldest son). They’re never followed by than. Older works everywhere, for people and things.

Practice

Correct the mistakes.

I have less pencils than you.
Few of my friends came to the party, so it was a lot of fun.
The movie was so bored that I fell asleep.
She bought a two kilograms bag of rice.
Ravi’s painting is very unique.
My brother is elder than my cousin.

Answers

fewer pencils 2. A few of my friends came (few would mean hardly any came, which doesn’t fit “a lot of fun”) 3. so boring 4. a two-kilogram bag 5. unique, or “truly unusual” 6. older than

Why this matters beyond exams

Every one of these mistakes is common in spoken English as well as writing. A student who says “I was boring” in a class presentation or an interview will be understood, but it sticks out. Getting them right is a small but noticeable step towards sounding confident in English.

In Bambinos’ live speaking and grammar sessions for older students, these mistakes get caught as they’re spoken, with a teacher pointing them out in the moment, not weeks later on a marked paper. You can try a class for free to see how it works.