Be Careful Of Objects Of Prepositions

An object of a preposition is a noun, pronoun, gerund or noun clause that comes after a preposition, such as in, at, of, to, by, behind, on, and so on, to form a prepositional phrase.

(After his exams) Tom will take a trip (by boat).

This sentence contains two objects of prepositions. Exams is the object of the preposition after, and boat is the object of the preposition by. An object of a preposition can cause confusion in structure questions on the TOEFL test because it can be mistaken for the subject of a sentence.

Example from the Paper and Computer TOEFL® Tests

With his friend ____ found the movie theater. (A) has (B) he (C) later (D) when

In this example you should look first for the subject and the verb. You should notice the verb found and should also notice that there is no subject. Do not think that friend is the subject; friend is the object of the preposition with, and one noun cannot be both a subject and an object at the same time. Because a subject is needed in this sentence, answer (B), he, is the best answer. Answers (A), (C), and (D) are not correct because they cannot be subjects.

The following chart outlines the key information that you should remember about objects of prepositions:

OBJECTS OF PREPOSITIONS

A preposition is followed by a noun, pronoun, gerund or noun clause that is called an object of the preposition. If a word is an object of a preposition, it is not the subject.

NOTE: A lengthy list of prepositions and practice in recognizing prepositions can be found in Appendix D at the back of the text. You may want to complete these exercises before continuing with Exercise 2.