Complex Sentence Worksheets

Use these free complex sentence worksheets to help your students improve their writing in English. Understanding simple, compound and complex sentences is vital for students. When it comes to complex sentences, it’s important for them to understand the difference between the main clause and the dependent clause (subordinate clause). Basically, the main clause is the part of the sentence that makes sense by itself, so if you took out the dependent clause, it could stand alone. Conversely, the dependent clause needs the main clause to make sense, and it always begins with a subordinating conjunction. Some examples are ‘while, although, as, before, after’ and so on. These subordinating conjunctions are big clues when it comes to identifying the dependent clause. These complex sentence worksheets have students working on identifying the main clause and the dependent/subordinate clause. Use them after you have explicitly taught you class. They can use the worksheets as an independent activity.