Cleft or Inversion? It Was the Team That … (C1 Grammar)

Use It was / is + the spotlighted person or thing + that to answer "which one?" and pin down the doer.

It was X that ... — spotlight who did it

• Liam: The design team finished the poster, not the editors.
• Yasmin: Then say it: It was the design team that finished the poster.
• Try it: Liam: Was it the printer that canceled the order? Yasmin: No. ___ Choose the best reply. (It was the distributor that canceled the order. / What the distributor did was cancel the order. / It was the order that the distributor canceled.) Answer: It was the distributor that canceled the order. — The it-cleft puts the distributor in the spotlight slot, which answers "which party?"

Never / Rarely / Seldom at the front — then the swap

Fronting Never, Rarely, Seldom or Little is formal and emphatic, and the helping verb then comes before the subject.

• Liam: Rarely have I seen such a quick reply to a survey.
• Yasmin: And little did we know the server had crashed.
• Try it: Which sentence fronts the negative adverb correctly? (Seldom does the committee overturn its own ruling. / Seldom the committee does overturn its own ruling. / Seldom overturns the committee its own ruling.) Answer: Seldom does the committee overturn its own ruling. — After a fronted negative adverb, the helping verb comes first, then the subject, then the base verb: does the committee overturn.