Try + gerund

[roco]

English Language Proficiency Tests, Advanced Level

ESL/EFL Test #119 "Gerund or Infinitive", question 6

Try ......... the door really hard if you want to open it.

(a) pushing
(b) push
(c) pushes
(d) pushed

English Language Proficiency Tests, Advanced Level

ESL/EFL Test #119 "Gerund or Infinitive", answer 6

Try pushing the door really hard if you want to open it.

Correct answer: (a) pushing

Your answer was: incorrect
Try push the door really hard if you want to open it.
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why choose "try pushing"

Thank you

roco

[Alan]

Hi roco,

Try doing something is to make an experiment and see if it works. Someone says: I can't open this door. The other person says: Try pushing it instead of pulling it.

Alan
_________________
English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story A day in the life of a parliamentary candidate

[Casafon]

Hi Alan.
Just two remarks:
1) Would it be possibile to use here: try to push the door, instead of pushing? Would a native speaker of english see it as wrong or not appropriate? Or are both possibilities (try to push/try pushing) correct, although the first one is more used?

2) In this question of the test as in the following one I would rather put the choice between "to push" and "pushing" in order to improve the "teaching effect" of the test.

Actually (sorry, I'm already at my third remark!) a very useful test would be one that always presents the learner with an alternative between "to do" and "doing". I didn't find anyone of this kind on the esl-page. The use of gerund instead of the infinitive it's always very difficult to me and I'm often tongue-tied when it comes to mouth it (or "to using it"?). Is there any rule that we can easly remember? Actually there is also a third possibility: the infintive form without "to" as in "I help you carry this".
Maybe my difficulty has rather to do with my native language which interfere with my english, and others may not be confused about it. Anyway I really do have many problems in understanding the difference between the three options. Moreover sometimes you have two possibilities with different meanings (as it was here with "try pushing"). These are cases when I really think that a language is a deep ocean, where you will never swim comfortably if were not born in.
Bye Paolo