Step one: Ask yourself, “What is the subject doing?” Find that action or state of being. Step two: Ignore all the extra fluff—like adverbs (“quickly”), prepositional phrases (“in the park”), or adjectives (“sparkly”).
For example, “The grumpy cat on the roof yelled loudly at the mailman.” The simple predicate is yelled. Not “yelled loudly,” not “yelled at the mailman”—just yelled. Think of it as the naked verb. (Okay, maybe don’t picture that.)
One more trick: The “Do it!” test
If you can put “do” or “does” before the verb, you’re probably looking at the predicate. Example: “Birds fly south.” Can you say “Birds do fly”? Yes! So “fly” is the simple predicate. For “The movie was boring,” can you say “The movie does was boring”? No, that’s weird. That’s because “was” is a linking verb, but it’s still the simple predicate. Grammar is full of exceptions—like a friend who says they’ll be there in five minutes but shows up an hour later.
PPT - Subjects & Predicates PowerPoint Presentation, free download - ID
