It-Cleft Sentences Exercises

What a cleft sentence does

A cleft sentence splits one idea into two parts so that one part stands out. It is useful for emphasis, especially in writing where you cannot use your voice to stress a word, but it is also common in speech.

Compare:

• Tom broke the window yesterday. (a plain sentence)
• It was Tom who broke the window yesterday. (emphasis on the person)

The emphasised part is new or important information. The rest of the sentence usually contains information that the listener already knows or can guess.

Building an it-cleft

The basic pattern is:

It + be + focus + that/who clause

You can emphasise different parts of the same sentence by changing the focus:

• Subject: It was Tom who broke the window yesterday.
• Object: It was the window that Tom broke yesterday.
• Time: It was yesterday that Tom broke the window.

The verb be can appear in other tenses (It is, It has been, It will be). Usually it stays singular even when the focus is plural: It was the children who made the noise. The verb in the second clause agrees with the focus when the focus is the subject (It’s the parents who were protesting).

Negative and question forms are also possible:

• It wasn’t the Greek student who phoned.
• Was it Tom who broke it?

Who, that, or something else?

• For a person as subject, use who or that: It was my aunt who/that taught me to cook.
• For things, use that (or which in more formal style).
• After an adverbial phrase of time or place, such as on Monday or in this room, use that: It was on Monday that the shop closed.
• In informal speech, you can leave out that or who when it stands for the object: It was your sister (that) I met.

When to use it-clefts

• Correcting a wrong idea: “Sharon’s car was broken into, wasn’t it?” “No, it was Nina’s car that was broken into.”
• Highlighting new information in writing, for example in essays and reports.
• Contrasting two options: It was the price, not the quality, that put people off.

Use them sparingly. If every sentence in a paragraph has a cleft, the emphasis stops working.

A short look at wh-clefts

A related structure begins with what (or where, why, how):

• I need a holiday. → What I need is a holiday.
• He lost his keys. → What he lost was his keys.

Here the old or understood information comes first, and the new information comes after be. With a verb phrase, the infinitive can be used with or without to: What we need to do is (to) get new batteries.

Exercise 1: Rewrite with an it-cleft

Rewrite each sentence to emphasise the bold part.

1. Maria called me last night.
2. Maria called me last night.
3. Maria called me last night.
4. We met in Paris.
5. The noise woke the baby.
6. She left early because of the traffic.

Exercise 2: Choose who or that

Complete each sentence. If both are possible, write both.

1. It was my aunt ___ taught me to cook.
2. It is in this room ___ we first met.
3. It was on Monday ___ the shop closed.
4. It was the noise ___ woke the baby.

Exercise 3: Choose the correct form

1. (It was the driver who / The driver was who) caused the delay.
2. It (were / was) the students who organised the event.
3. It was in July (that / what) we moved.

Exercise 4: Rewrite as a wh-cleft

1. I need a long sleep.
2. She wants a new job.
3. They enjoyed the music.

Answers

Exercise 1

1. It was Maria who (or that) called me last night.
2. It was me that Maria called last night. (In formal writing: It was I whom Maria called, but this sounds stiff.)
3. It was last night that Maria called me.
4. It was in Paris that we met.
5. It was the noise that woke the baby.
6. It was because of the traffic that she left early.

Exercise 2

1. who or that
2. that (after an adverbial phrase of place)
3. that (after an adverbial phrase of time)
4. that (the focus is a thing)

Exercise 3

1. It was the driver who caused the delay.
2. It was the students who organised the event. (It remains singular with was.)
3. It was in July that we moved.

Exercise 4 (sample answers)

1. What I need is a long sleep.
2. What she wants is a new job.
3. What they enjoyed was the music.

If you want to check how well you can spot wrongly built sentences, try the identifying sentence errors exercises. The cleft pattern also relies on relative-clause structure, so reviewing noun phrases and their postmodifiers can help. For general editing practice, use the sentence correction exercises.