Spain won their last friendly FOOTBALL match

Analyzing the question

This is an emphatic stress question. The word in capitals, FOOTBALL, carries the emphasis. The emphasised word shows what is being contrasted or questioned. The sentence is "Spain won their last friendly FOOTBALL match", so the stress suggests the speaker is contrasting football with some other sport (e.g., basketball).

The concept

When a word is stressed in a sentence, the question that matches it will challenge or ask about that particular word, while the rest of the sentence stays the same.

• Stress on Spain → "Who won their last friendly football match?"
• Stress on won → "Did Spain lose...?"
• Stress on friendly → "Did Spain win their last competitive football match?"
• Stress on FOOTBALL → "Did Spain win their last friendly basketball match?" (a different sport)

Step-by-step check of the options

• A. Asks about who won, so it relates to stress on "Spain". ✗
• B. Changes friendly to competitive, so it relates to stress on "friendly". ✗
• C. Changes win to lose and friendly to competitive. This matches neither the stressed word nor the focus here. ✗
• D. Keeps everything the same but changes football to basketball, which is exactly the word being emphasised. ✓

Answer: D

Exam tip: In emphatic stress questions, find the capitalised word first. The correct option is the one that changes or questions that exact word while leaving the rest of the sentence unchanged. Quickly eliminate options that alter other words.