Sentence Transformation

Transformation questions give you a sentence and a starting word, and ask for the same meaning in a different structure. The pairs are fixed, so learn them as pairs.

1. Simple ↔ complex ↔ compound. "too … to" = "so … that … not"; "as soon as" = "no sooner … than"; "because of his illness" = "because he was ill" = "he was ill and so".
2. Affirmative ↔ negative. "Only Ravi can do it" = "None but Ravi can do it"; "He must obey" = "He cannot but obey"; "She is as tall as I" = "She is not shorter than I."
3. Assertive ↔ interrogative ↔ exclamatory. "Everybody knows this" = "Who does not know this?"; "It is a very beautiful place" = "What a beautiful place it is!"
4. Degree, voice and narration changes are transformations too — the same rules as those topics, applied on demand.

The single most common mistake is the "too … to" conversion. "He is too weak to walk" does not become "He is so weak that he can walk"; the "that" clause must be negative: "He is so weak that he cannot walk." The word too always means "more than is acceptable" and therefore carries a hidden "not" in its consequence.

How to spot it: after transforming, read the new sentence and ask whether it states the same fact as the old one. If the old sentence said the action did not happen and the new one says it did, the negative has been lost.

too … to = so … that … cannot (the negative must survive) · as soon as = no sooner … than · only = none but · must = cannot but · assertive → "Who does not …?" · very + adjective → "What a …!"

Transform using "so … that": "He is too tired to attend the meeting." → "Too … to" carries a hidden negative, so the result is "He is so tired that he cannot attend the meeting." Sanity check: both sentences must report the same fact — in each of them he does not attend. Had the answer been "so tired that he can attend", the meaning would have reversed.