Class 8 · 8th standard · 2026-27

Class 8 English worksheets, free, with every answer on the page

Three free Class 8 English worksheets - one grammar, one reading, one writing - with every question, every answer and a full model article printed on this page rather than behind a download. The split is deliberate: by Class 8 the reading and writing sections carry more of the paper than grammar does, and they are the parts that get the least practice, because grammar has clean right answers and feels like studying. Every exercise opens with one question worked through in full.

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3 worksheets · 64 questions · every answer on the page · no sign-up · aligned to NCERT readers are used in CBSE schools and school-chosen readers elsewhere. These sheets are written to the skills the paper tests rather than to one book's chapters.

What these practise

The four conditional types and the tense pair each one needs
Relative pronouns chosen by what they stand for
Joining two sentences with a relative clause
Retrieval questions answered fast, so the time goes elsewhere
Inference answered in the child's own words with evidence quoted
Working out a phrase's meaning from its context
Article format - heading, byline, body, conclusion
A four-point plan written before any writing starts
Acknowledging the other side of an argument

Last updated 2026-07-29

Free, with answers

The worksheets themselves

Every question is on this page, and so is every answer. Nothing is behind a sign-up, and there is no file to download unless you want one - use the print button on any sheet to save it as a PDF.

practice · medium · 25 min

Conditionals and relative clauses

Class 8 English · Grammar · 33 questions with answers

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Conditionals are four patterns, not four rules to remember - each pairs a particular tense in the 'if' half with a particular one in the other. Relative clauses are simpler still: one pronoun, chosen by what it stands for. Both are quick to fix and both keep appearing until Class 10.

Chooses the right tense pair for each of the four conditional types
Selects who, whom, whose, which, that or where correctly
Joins two sentences using a relative clause
Uses a phrasal verb whose meaning cannot be assembled from its parts

Exercise 1 of 3 · 11 questions

Complete with the correct form of the verbs in brackets.

Write the answer · Warm-up

Here’s one done for you

'If she had left earlier, she would not have missed the bus.' This is the type children get wrong most, and the reason is that it describes something that did not happen - she did not leave earlier, and she did miss the bus. The pattern is fixed: had + past participle in the first half, would have + past participle in the second. If either half slips into a simple past, the sentence stops meaning what it should.

1)If you ___ (heat) ice, it melts.
2)If it ___ (rain) tomorrow, we ___ (cancel) the picnic.
3)If I ___ (be) taller, I ___ (play) basketball for the school.
4)If she ___ (leave) earlier, she ___ (not miss) the bus.
5)If you ___ (not water) the plants, they ___ (die).
6)If you ___ (mix) blue and yellow, you get green.
7)If we ___ (miss) the bus, we ___ (have) to walk.
8)If I ___ (know) the answer, I ___ (tell) you.
9)If he ___ (study) harder, he ___ (not fail) the test.
10)If water ___ (reach) 100 degrees, it boils.
11)If they ___ (invite) me, I ___ (go).

Answers

1) heat. A general truth takes present tense in both halves.
2) rains, will cancel. A likely future event: if + present simple, then will + base form.
3) were, would play. An imagined present: if + past, then would + base form. 'Were' is used for all persons here.
4) had left, would not have missed. A past that did not happen: if + past perfect, then would have + past participle.
5) do not water, will die. A likely future consequence.
6) mix - a general truth, so both halves stay in the present.
7) miss / will have - a real possibility, so present in the if-clause and will in the other.
8) knew / would tell - an unreal present situation, so past in the if-clause and would in the other.
9) had studied / would not have failed - an unreal past situation, so past perfect and would have.
10) reaches - a scientific fact, so the present simple in both halves.
11) invite / will go - a real future possibility, so present in the if-clause and will in the other.

Exercise 2 of 3 · 11 questions

Fill in with who, whom, whose, which, that or where.

Write the answer · Guided

Here’s one done for you

'The girl whose bag was stolen reported it at once.' The choice is decided by what the word stands for, not by how the sentence sounds. A person doing something takes who; a person having something done to them takes whom; possession takes whose; a thing takes which or that; a place takes where. Five choices, one question - what does it stand for?

1)The boy ___ won the race is my cousin.
2)The book ___ I borrowed from the library is very interesting.
3)That is the house ___ we lived for ten years.
4)The girl ___ bag was stolen reported it at once.
5)The man ___ we met yesterday is a doctor.
6)The film ___ we watched last night was excellent.
7)This is the shop ___ I bought my bag.
8)The scientist ___ discovered penicillin was Fleming.
9)I know a girl ___ father is a pilot.
10)The reason ___ he gave was not convincing.
11)She is the person to ___ I spoke.

Answers

1) who - it stands for a person doing the action.
2) which, or that - it stands for a thing.
3) where - it stands for a place.
4) whose - it shows possession.
5) whom - it stands for a person receiving the action. 'Who' is common in speech, but 'whom' is what the paper expects here.
6) which or that
7) where
8) who
9) whose
10) that or which
11) whom

Exercise 3 of 3 · 11 questions

Join each pair into one sentence using a relative clause.

Write the answer · Practice

Here’s one done for you

'The village is beautiful. I was born there.' becomes 'The village where I was born is beautiful.' Two things to notice. The word 'there' disappears, because 'where' has taken its job - keeping both is the commonest error. And the relative clause slots in immediately after the noun it describes rather than at the end of the sentence.

1)This is the man. He helped us find the address.
2)I read a book. It was written by Ruskin Bond.
3)The village is beautiful. I was born there.
4)She is the teacher. Her son is in my class.
5)We visited the museum. It was closed for repairs.
6)That is the doctor. She treated my grandfather.
7)I lost the pen. My uncle gave it to me.
8)This is the school. I studied here for six years.
9)He is the boy. His drawing won the prize.
10)We met a farmer. He grows only organic vegetables.
11)The bridge collapsed. It was built in 1902.

Answers

1) This is the man who helped us find the address.
2) I read a book which was written by Ruskin Bond. ('that' is also acceptable)
3) The village where I was born is beautiful.
4) She is the teacher whose son is in my class.
5) We visited the museum, which was closed for repairs.
6) That is the doctor who treated my grandfather.
7) I lost the pen that my uncle gave me.
8) This is the school where I studied for six years.
9) He is the boy whose drawing won the prize.
10) We met a farmer who grows only organic vegetables.
11) The bridge, which was built in 1902, collapsed.

While your child works

For conditionals, ask 'did it happen or not?' before choosing the tense. That single question sorts type 2 and type 3.
For relative pronouns, ask 'what does it stand for?' - person, thing, place, or possession.
When joining sentences, check the leftover word has gone. 'The village where I was born there' is the classic slip.

Open the Grammar worksheet on its own page

practice · challenging · 30 min

Unseen passage and inference

Class 8 English · Comprehension · 24 questions with answers

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By Class 8 most comprehension marks are for things the passage does not say. That is the whole difficulty: a child looking for the sentence that matches the question will not find it, and will copy the nearest one. The instruction that fixes it is one sentence long - the answer is in the passage, but not in those words.

Answers a directly stated question quickly and moves on
Answers an inference question in their own words, with evidence quoted
Works out a phrase's meaning from its context
Recognises when a question has more than one defensible answer

Exercise 1 of 3 · 8 questions

Read the passage, then answer. PASSAGE: For thirty-one years Mr Iyer's shop opened at six and closed at nine, and for thirty-one years a green ledger sat beside the till. In it he wrote the names of people who had taken rice or oil and could not pay that week. He never mentioned the ledger to anyone, and never sent word to anyone whose name was in it. When a customer eventually paid, he drew a single line through the entry - he never crossed it out and never tore out the page. His son, who runs the shop now, found the ledger while clearing the back room last winter. Almost four hundred entries were still open. He has not decided what to do with it, though he has not thrown it away either.

Write the answer · Warm-up

Here’s one done for you

These four should take about ninety seconds between them, and that is the point of doing them first. Every one is stated directly, so a child who is slow here is reading the passage rather than searching it. Read once for sense, then search for each answer - the retrieval questions are meant to be cheap so that the time goes to the ones that are not.

1)For how many years did Mr Iyer run the shop in this way?
2)What did he write in the green ledger?
3)What did he do when a customer finally paid?
4)How many entries were still open when the ledger was found?
5)Where was the green ledger kept?
6)What did Mr Iyer do when a customer paid?
7)Who was clearing the back room?
8)What did the family find there?

Answers

1) Thirty-one years.
2) The names of people who had taken rice or oil and could not pay that week.
3) He drew a single line through the entry.
4) Almost four hundred.
5) Beside the till.
6) He drew a line through the entry.
7) The family, after the shop had closed.
8) The green ledger, with entries still open in it.

Exercise 2 of 3 · 8 questions

None of these is stated. Answer in your own words and quote your evidence.

Write the answer · Guided

Here’s one done for you

Why did he never mention the ledger? Because he did not want people to feel ashamed - and the evidence is that he 'never sent word to anyone whose name was in it'. Notice the shape: the answer in the child's own words, then the quotation that supports it. Quoting the evidence rather than the answer is the whole technique, and it is what separates a Class 8 inference answer from a Class 5 one.

1)Why do you think Mr Iyer never mentioned the ledger to anyone?
2)What does drawing a line - rather than crossing out or tearing the page - suggest about him?
3)What does the last sentence suggest about how his son feels?
4)What is the writer's attitude towards Mr Iyer? How do you know?
5)Why might Mr Iyer have kept lending without ever pressing for payment?
6)What does keeping the ledger beside the till suggest about how often it was used?
7)Why does the writer give the number of open entries rather than describing them?
8)What kind of shop does this seem to have been?

Answers

1) So that the people in it would not feel ashamed or indebted. The passage says he 'never sent word to anyone whose name was in it', which shows he was not trying to collect the money.
2) That he did not want to erase what had happened. A line still leaves the entry readable, and the passage stresses that he 'never crossed it out and never tore out the page' - the record mattered to him beyond the debt.
3) That he is uncertain, and that the ledger means something to him. He 'has not decided what to do with it, though he has not thrown it away either' - the second half is what shows he values it.
4) Admiring, though the writer never says so. The admiration is carried by the details chosen - the exactness of 'thirty-one years', the single line, the four hundred open entries - none of which needed to be included unless they were meant to say something about the man.
5) Because he knew his customers and understood that some could not pay at once. Pressing them would have shamed them and cost him their custom.
6) That it was in constant use - it was kept where he could reach it during every transaction, not stored away.
7) Because a number is concrete and lets the reader judge the scale for themselves. Describing them would have made it a story about individuals rather than about how he ran the shop.
8) A small neighbourhood shop where the owner knew his customers personally, which is what made lending on trust possible at all.

Exercise 3 of 3 · 8 questions

What does each phrase mean here? Work it out from the passage.

Write the answer · Practice

Here’s one done for you

'Still open' does not mean the shop was open, and the passage tells you so: entries are open when they have not been settled, because a line was drawn through them when they were. Vocabulary questions in Class 8 are testing whether a child reads the sentence around the word or reaches for a meaning they already know. Working it out is the exercise; looking it up defeats it.

1)beside the till
2)still open
3)clearing the back room
4)sent word
5)ran the shop
6)entries
7)drew a line through
8)for thirty-odd years

Answers

1) Next to the cash box or drawer where money was kept.
2) Not yet paid off - the entry had never had a line drawn through it.
3) Emptying or tidying the storeroom at the back of the shop.
4) Sent a message - here, a reminder asking for payment.
5) Managed and operated it from day to day.
6) Written records of what each customer owed.
7) Crossed it out to show the debt had been paid.
8) For a little more than thirty years - 'odd' here means slightly more, not strange.

While your child works

For every inference answer, ask 'which words made you think that?' and have them quoted. The evidence carries the mark.
Time the retrieval questions. If those take more than two minutes, the child is reading rather than searching.
The last inference question has more than one defensible answer. Judge it on the evidence given, not on matching the key.

Open the Comprehension worksheet on its own page

practice · challenging · 30 min

Article writing

Class 8 English · Writing · 7 questions with answers

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Read enough Class 8 articles and one pattern repeats: a good opening, a good second paragraph, and a third that repeats the second in different words. The child had two ideas and the question needed four. That is a planning problem rather than a language one, which is why it is the most improvable thing on the whole paper.

Lays out an article with heading and byline in place
Plans four points in two minutes before writing
Writes paragraphs that each carry one distinct idea
Acknowledges the other side of an argument

Exercise 1 of 3 · 4 questions

Put the parts of an article in order. Number them 1 to 4.

Put in order · Warm-up

Here’s one done for you

Heading, byline, body, conclusion. These are format marks, awarded before anyone reads what the article says, and children lose them by forgetting the byline more often than by anything else. Ten seconds of layout secures marks that no amount of good writing can recover once they have gone.

1)A. Body - two or three paragraphs, one idea each
2)B. Heading
3)C. Conclusion - what should happen, or what it adds up to
4)D. Byline - by, and the writer's name

Answers

1) B, D, A, C. Heading first, then the byline, then the body, then the conclusion.

Exercise 2 of 3 · 2 questions

Write a four-point plan for each topic. Do not write the article - just the plan.

Write the answer · Guided

Here’s one done for you

Four bullet points, two minutes, and the article is already decided. Position, reason, reason, conclusion - or position, reason, counter-argument, conclusion where the topic has two sides. Children resist this because it feels like time taken away from writing. It is the only part of the writing section that reliably turns practice into marks, and skipping it is what produces the third paragraph that repeats the second.

1)Should mobile phones be allowed in schools?
2)The importance of reading outside the syllabus

Answers

1) 1. Position: phones should be allowed but kept switched off during class. 2. Reason for: safety and contact with parents while travelling. 3. Reason against: they are a serious distraction and can be misused. 4. Conclusion: a clear rule - deposited at the start of the day, returned at the end - solves both.
2) 1. Position: reading beyond the textbook matters more than it is given credit for. 2. Reason: it builds vocabulary and comprehension without feeling like study. 3. Reason: it introduces ideas the syllabus has no room for. 4. Conclusion: twenty minutes a day of anything a child chooses is enough to change how they read.

Exercise 3 of 3 · 1 questions

Now write the article in full, about 150 to 200 words. A model answer is given.

Write the answer · Practice

Here’s one done for you

The model follows its own plan exactly: position, reason for, reason against, resolution. Notice that it argues both sides before choosing - that is what makes it a Class 8 article rather than a Class 5 opinion, and it is the single easiest way to lift a piece of writing. Your child's position may be the opposite of this one and score just as well, provided it is argued rather than asserted.

1)Should mobile phones be allowed in schools? Write an article for your school magazine.

Answers

1) PHONES IN SCHOOL: A RULE, NOT A BAN by Ananya Rao, Class 8-B Few school arguments are as tired as the one about mobile phones, and few are settled so badly. Most schools choose between allowing them entirely and banning them entirely, when neither extreme reflects how they are actually used. There is a real case for allowing them. Many of us travel a considerable distance to school, and a phone is how a parent knows we have arrived. A bus that does not come is a genuine problem when there is no way to say so. There is an equally real case against. A phone in a pocket during a lesson is a distraction even when it is not touched, and every teacher knows it. Photographs taken without permission and messages sent in class are not imaginary problems either. But these are arguments for a rule rather than for a ban. Phones deposited at the start of the day and returned at the end would answer both concerns at once. The device is available when it is needed and absent when it is not, which is all anyone on either side was really asking for.

While your child works

Insist on the plan before the writing. Two minutes, four bullet points, and the flat third paragraph disappears.
Check the byline. It is the format mark most often forgotten and it costs nothing to remember.
Either position is correct. Judge the article on whether the other side was acknowledged, not on whether you agree with it.

Open the Writing worksheet on its own page

Why one sheet each for grammar, reading and writing?

Because that is roughly how the paper is weighted, and it is not at all how revision is.

Ask a Class 8 child what they revise for English and the answer is grammar. Ask where the marks were lost and it is reading and writing. Grammar has clean right answers, so it feels like studying; comprehension and composition do not, so they get skipped - while the sections carrying the most marks get the least practice.

These three sheets simply put the time back where the marks are. The argument in full is on our Class 8 English tuition page.

How should we use these at home?

Twenty-five to thirty minutes each, once or twice a week. Every exercise opens with one question worked through in full.

In conditionals, ask 'did it happen or not?' before choosing a tense. That question sorts the two types children confuse.
In comprehension, ask 'which words made you think that?' and have them quoted. The evidence carries the mark.
In writing, insist on the two-minute plan. It is the only part of the writing section that reliably converts practice into marks.
Let your child mark their own work. Every answer is on the page for exactly that reason.

Where do Class 8 children usually stall in English?

Three places, one in each section.

Grammar: the third conditional. It describes something that did not happen, and any slip into simple past changes the meaning.
Reading: copying the nearest line instead of inferring. It worked for six years and stops working here.
Writing: the third paragraph that repeats the second. Two ideas, four paragraphs needed, no plan.

None of these is about a child's English being weak. All three are method, which is why Class 8 English responds so quickly to the right practice - see Class 7 English worksheets for what came before.

Questions parents ask

Class 8 English worksheets - your questions

Are these Class 8 English worksheets free?

Yes. Every question, every answer and a full model article are on this page, with no sign-up, no email wall and no account. The printable version puts the answers on a separate final sheet.

Do these include a model answer for the writing?

Yes, a complete article of about 200 words with the format marked out. It is an example rather than the only correct version - the opposite position would score just as well if it is argued.

Why does my child revise grammar and still lose marks?

Because by Class 8 reading and writing carry more of the paper than grammar does. Grammar has clean right answers, so it absorbs the revision time that the other two sections actually needed.

How do I help with inference questions?

Say one thing: the answer is in the passage, but not in those words. Have your child answer in their own words first, then quote the line that supports it.

What is the format of an article?

Heading, byline, two or three body paragraphs with one idea each, then a conclusion. Those marks are given before the content is read, and the byline is the one most often forgotten.

Are these matched to NCERT?

They are written to the skills the Class 8 paper tests rather than to one reader's chapters, so they work whatever book your school uses.

How long should a Class 8 child spend on one sheet?

Twenty-five to thirty minutes. The writing sheet may take longer if the article is actually written out, which is worth the time - a piece written and properly marked beats three written and glanced at.

Can I print these worksheets?

Yes. They print cleanly on A4 with the answers on a separate final page, and nothing needs to be downloaded or signed up for.

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Class 8 English worksheets, free, with every answer on the page

The worksheets themselves

Conditionals and relative clauses

Unseen passage and inference

Article writing

Class 8 English - the guide

Why one sheet each for grammar, reading and writing?

How should we use these at home?

Where do Class 8 children usually stall in English?

Class 8 English worksheets - your questions

Worksheets are free. So is the first class.

Book a free assessment