Fill in the blank with the correct option: “Unless you ______ hard, you cannot succeed.”

Correct answer: Work. “Unless” already means “if not”, so the verb after it is positive: “Unless you work hard…”.

Background: In a conditional sentence, the verb after “unless” is positive.

• Worked: “Worked” does not match the present-tense clause.
• Do not work: “Do not work” makes a double negative with “unless”.
• Did not work: “Did not work” makes a double negative with “unless”.

Did you know? “Unless you work hard” = “If you do not work hard”.

Memory trick: Unless = if not.