-ed vs -ing Adjectives — Exercises
Practice the -ed vs -ing adjective contrast: bored/boring, interested/interesting, excited/exciting, confused/confusing, and more. Fill-blank, dropdown and context-bank exercises.
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The film was so ___ that I fell asleep halfway through.
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boring
The film causes the feeling, so use the -ing form — 'boring'.
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After the long flight, the children were ___.
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tired
The children feel the effect, so use the -ed form — 'tired'.
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I'm really ___ in learning Japanese this year.
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interested
You feel the interest, so use the -ed form — 'interested in'.
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Her new book is absolutely ___.
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fascinating
The book causes the feeling, so use the -ing form — 'fascinating'.
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We were ___ by the bad news about the factory.
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shocked
The people feel the effect, so use the -ed form — 'shocked'.
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The journey home was long and ___.
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exhausting
The journey causes the feeling, so use the -ing form — 'exhausting'.
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She looked ___ when she heard the result.
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surprised
She feels the effect, so use the -ed form — 'looked surprised'.
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I was ___ with the hotel — it was much worse than the photos.
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disappointed
You feel the effect, so use the -ed form — 'disappointed'.
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The lecture was quite ___ — nobody understood it.
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confusing
The lecture causes the feeling, so use the -ing form — 'confusing'.
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Everyone felt ___ after the team lost the final.
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depressed
The people feel the effect, so use the -ed form — 'felt depressed'.
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That's an ___ offer — I think you should accept it.
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amazing
The offer causes the feeling, so use the -ing form — 'an amazing offer'.
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The students were ___ during the long presentation.
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bored
The students feel the effect, so use the -ed form — 'bored'.
-ed vs -ing Adjectives: Who Feels It vs What Causes It
Dozens of common English adjectives come in pairs built from the same emotion verb, differing only in their ending: bored/boring, interested/interesting, excited/exciting, confused/confusing, tired/tiring, surprised/surprising, disappointed/disappointing, embarrassed/embarrassing. The -ing form always describes the source of the feeling — a film, a situation, a person, a piece of news. The -ed form always describes the person who experiences that feeling. Learner corpus data shows this pair is confused across all proficiency bands from A2 to B2, partly because the two forms are visually and phonetically close, and partly because many other languages use a single adjective for both meanings, forcing learners to build a genuinely new distinction rather than translate an existing one.
The Diagnostic Question: Cause or Effect?
The students were bored during the presentation. (the students = affected)
The results were surprising — nobody expected them. (the results = cause)
She looked surprised when she heard the result. (she = affected)
-ed Adjectives Can Also Come Before a Noun
Both forms can appear directly before a noun, not only after 'be' or 'feel'. What matters is still cause vs effect, not sentence position: 'the excited children' (the children are affected) versus 'an exciting trip' (the trip causes the excitement).
Common Mistakes
✗ The lecture was quite confused. → ✓ The lecture was quite confusing. (the lecture causes the confusion)
✗ Everyone felt depressing after the loss. → ✓ Everyone felt depressed after the loss.
Last updated: · Satori Editorial