-ed and -ing Adjectives: Practice with Explained Answers

“I'm bored” and “I'm boring” are both grammatical. But they tell the listener different things: the first describes your feeling; the second says you make other people feel bored. Changing the ending can turn a complaint about your afternoon into a complaint about yourself.

This -ed and -ing adjectives practice focuses on that choice. Use the short worksheet below to identify who feels something and who or what causes it. Then try twelve original questions before reading the explained answers.

Choose the meaning before the ending

For emotion pairs such as bored/boring and interested/interesting, the -ed adjective describes the feeling, while the -ing adjective describes someone or something that causes it. The British Council's adjective lesson explains this distinction.

Don't reduce it to “-ed for people, -ing for things.” A person can be interesting, and a frightened dog can feel fear. Cambridge's bored-or-boring reference also distinguishes feeling bored from causing boredom.

Feeling	Cause of the feeling	Small example
bored	boring	I felt bored during the boring wait.
interested	interesting	The interesting map made Ravi interested in the island.
confused	confusing	A confusing sign left the visitors confused.
excited	exciting	The exciting news made us excited.
frightened	frightening	The frightened dog hid from the frightening noise.

The ending doesn't tell you when the feeling happens. Compare “I was excited yesterday” and “I'll be excited tomorrow.” Both describe the speaker's feeling. The rest of the sentence establishes the time.

These words are often called participle adjectives because they use verb forms as adjectives. The feeling/cause rule covers the emotion pairs in this lesson; it isn't a rule for every word ending in -ed or -ing. In smoked food or boiling water, the adjectives describe preparation or a physical state. Cambridge's guide to -ing and -ed adjectives includes these broader uses. For participles doing jobs in verb structures, see past simple vs past participle.

A three-column worksheet

Before choosing an ending, identify who or what the adjective describes. Then decide whether you're describing a feeling or its cause. Write all three parts of your answer:

Who or what am I describing?	Feeling or cause?	Adjective
Eva: she wants to learn more about a painting	Feeling	interested
Eva: her stories make her listeners want to hear more	Cause	interesting

Eva is a person in both rows. What changes is her role. In the first, she feels interest. In the second, she creates interest for someone else. Both descriptions could even be true at the same time: Eva can be interested in the painting while telling an interesting story about it.

If you can't decide from a sentence alone, ask for its intended meaning. “Eva is interested” and “Eva is interesting” can both work. A useful exercise supplies enough context to make the choice clear.

Twelve exercises: keep the intended meaning

For questions 1–4, use the worksheet: name the person being described, write feeling or cause, and choose the adjective. Try all twelve questions before checking the key.

1. Amir waits for his bus. He has nothing to do and keeps checking the time. Describe his feeling: Amir is bored / boring.
2. Later, Amir repeats the same story six times. His listeners lose interest. Describe his effect on them: Amir is bored / boring.
3. Lea sees a tiny model of a city. She wants to know how it was built. Describe her feeling: Lea is interested / interesting.
4. Lea then explains how she builds models. Everyone wants to hear more. Describe her effect on them: Lea is interested / interesting.

For questions 5–8, fill each blank with one of the supplied forms. Follow the meaning given by the context.

5. The instructions use the same symbol for two different buttons. This makes them hard to understand. The instructions are ___. (confused / confusing)
6. Rosa can't work out which button to press. She feels ___. (confused / confusing)
7. A sudden crash scares the dog. The dog is ___. (frightened / frightening)
8. We can hardly wait for tomorrow's boat trip. We're already ___. (excited / exciting)

For questions 9–12, replace only the bold adjective so the sentence expresses the supplied meaning. Some originals sound unnatural; others are grammatical but say something different. Use the intended meaning to make the repair.

9. Intended meaning: Niko feels awkward because he called his teacher by the wrong name. “Niko feels embarrassing.”
10. Intended meaning: the late delivery makes the customer feel annoyed. “The late delivery is annoyed.”
11. Intended meaning: the coach's behavior makes people worry. “The coach's behavior is worried.”
12. Intended meaning: tomorrow, Mina will feel excitement about opening her birthday present. “Mina will be exciting tomorrow.”

Answers and the reason for each

1. Amir is bored. Worksheet: Amir; feeling; bored. He has nothing to do and wants the wait to end.
2. Amir is boring. Worksheet: Amir; cause; boring. His repeated story makes the listeners lose interest. Bored would describe Amir's own feeling, which this scene doesn't establish.
3. Lea is interested. Worksheet: Lea; feeling; interested. She wants to learn about the model. The sentence describes her reaction to it.
4. Lea is interesting. Worksheet: Lea; cause; interesting. Her explanation holds the listeners' attention. Lea is the person being described in both questions, so being a person can't decide the ending.
5. The instructions are confusing. Using one symbol for two buttons makes the instructions hard to follow. The adjective describes their effect on the reader.
6. Rosa feels confused. Rosa can't decide which button to press. This blank describes her reaction to the instructions.
7. The dog is frightened. The crash scares the dog. Frightening would say the dog scares someone else, which isn't the supplied meaning.
8. We're already excited. The sentence describes how we feel about tomorrow's trip. Calling us exciting would describe our effect on other people.
9. Niko feels embarrassed. He feels awkward about his mistake. You could call the mistake embarrassing because it causes that reaction.
10. The late delivery is annoying. The delivery causes annoyance. “The customer is annoyed” would describe the person experiencing it.
11. The coach's behavior is worrying. The behavior causes worry. To describe someone experiencing it, say “The players are worried about the coach's behavior.”
12. Mina will be excited tomorrow. Mina will experience excitement. Future time doesn't require an -ing adjective.

Make cards for the choices you missed

A card saying only “interested or interesting?” has no clear answer. Keep the intended meaning on the front, especially when both forms could produce a grammatical sentence.

Mistake to practice	Card front	Card back
Described a feeling as a cause	Jo wants to learn more about birds. Describe her feeling: Jo is ___. (interested / interesting)	interested — Jo feels interest.
Assumed people always take -ed	Jo's stories hold everyone's attention. Jo is ___. (interested / interesting)	interesting — Jo creates interest.
Chose by time	Tomorrow I'll feel excitement about the race. I'll be ___. (excited / exciting)	excited — my feeling; tomorrow supplies the time.
Changed the intended meaning	Repair “The delay is frustrated.” Meaning: it makes travelers feel frustrated.	The delay is frustrating. The delay causes the feeling.

Use paper or your chosen card app. The cloze vs basic flashcards guide can help you choose a sentence blank or a direct repair question; the language-learning flashcard guide covers a broader routine.

When you review, say the completed sentence and name the role. Count an answer as correct only if you can explain who feels something or what causes it. For a question you missed, write a second sentence that describes the other role: “Jo is interested in birds. Her stories about birds are interesting.” Give the second sentence its own context, such as listeners wanting to hear more. Changing the ending changes the meaning, so the new sentence needs to make sense too.

Drafted with AI assistance using the linked grammar references. The scenes, exercises, and card prompts are original teaching examples.