Which endings indicate nouns formed from verbs that should be changed back to verbs when possible?

• A. ion and ment
• B. ing and ed
• C. er and est
• D. tion and ment

Answer: (A)

In editing, aim to keep actions in verb form rather than turning them into nouns. The endings that most clearly signal a noun formed from a verb are -ion and -ment. They produce words like organization from organize or development from develop, which are exactly the kinds of nominalizations you’d rewrite back to the verb when you can. Those suffixes reliably indicate a verb-to-noun shift, so spotting them helps you keep sentences tight and active. The other endings serve different roles: -er and -est are adjective or agent-noun forms, while -ing and -ed are participles or gerunds and don’t signal the classic verb-to-noun shift in the same way. Although -tion is closely related to -tion/-ion forms, the pairing here that best matches the idea of standard verb-derived nouns to revert is -ion and -ment.