In the sentence 'The curious student asked thoughtful questions,' which is the subject and which is the predicate?

• A. Subject: The curious student; Predicate: asked thoughtful questions.
• B. Subject: asked thoughtful questions; Predicate: The curious student.
• C. Subject: The curious; Predicate: student asked thoughtful questions.
• D. Subject: The curious student asked; Predicate: thoughtful questions.

Answer: (A)

The main idea is who the sentence is about and what is said about that person. The subject tells who or what performs the action, while the predicate describes the action itself.

In this sentence, the subject is The curious student because it names the person doing something. The predicate is asked thoughtful questions because it tells what the subject did, including the verb asked and its object thoughtful questions.

That arrangement matches how a sentence is built: a noun phrase at the start that acts as the doer, followed by the verb and any extra details about the action. The other ways of grouping words try to make a non-noun phrase the subject or split the action in a way that doesn’t describe the sentence correctly.