It-Clefts: It Was…That

It was Maria who solved the problem, not James.

Notice

  • It was Maria who solved the problem, not James.
  • It was in 2019 that they finally moved to Spain.
  • It wasn’t the price that bothered me, it was the quality.
  • It was because of the traffic that we were late.

Rule

Structure: It + be + the emphasised part + that/who + rest of the sentence.

An it-cleft splits a simple sentence in two to put special emphasis on one piece of information — often to correct a misunderstanding or highlight a contrast.

Practice

  1. Rewrite with emphasis on ‘my sister’: ‘My sister found the missing keys.’
    Answer: It was my sister who found the missing keys.
  2. Rewrite with emphasis on ‘yesterday’: ‘The package arrived yesterday.’
    Answer: It was yesterday that the package arrived.
  3. Correct a misunderstanding: ‘You think I forgot. Actually, I remembered but I was busy.’
    Answer: It wasn’t that I forgot, it was that I was busy.
  4. Identify what is emphasised: ‘It was the manager who approved the budget.’
    Answer: ‘The manager’ is emphasised.

Connect

Practise building it-cleft sentences for emphasis.

Try Sentence Builder →

CEFR: Spoken Production — present clear, detailed points with the right emphasis.

Azizul Hakim
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