Test Your Understanding of the Present Continuous Tense
1. ______ the clock ________ (work)?
2. The teachers ___________ (plan) to dance to all the latest songs on Childrens Day.
3. ______ she ___________ (play – negative) the piano anymore?
4. The dog __________ (run) all around the garden.
5. We ____________ (go – negative) to the party tomorrow.
6. The Bellas ___________ (perform) the songs of the 80s.
7. Will, Smith and Sherlock ___________ (dance) well.
8. _______ I __________ (look) good today?
9. Trinita and Vinitha ____________ (ride) on their new cat.
10. _____ he still ________ (stand) there?
The Simple Past Tense
The simple past tense, in English, is used to represent an action/event that took place in the past.
With many verbs, the simple past tense is formed by adding an ‘ed’ or a ‘d’ to the end of the base
verb. However, there are other verbs which behave differently and take different spellings when used
in the simple past form.
What Do You Use the Simple Past Tense For?
The simple past tense can be used to,
● Refer to an action or event that happened in the past
● Speak about something that was true for some time in the past
● Explain something that happened more than once in the past
Structure of the Simple Past Tense
Learning the structure of the simple past tense can be made simple if you analyze how the tense is
used in the positive, negative, interrogative and negative interrogative formats. Look at the table
below to have a better understanding of the same.
Structure of Simple Past Tense
Positive Negative Interrogative Negative Interrogative
Subject + Verb Subject + Did + Subject + Verb in the Didn’t + Subject + Verb in the
in the past Didn’t + base form base form
form (base Verb in the
form of the base form
verb + ed/d for
regular verbs
or past tense
form of the
irregular verbs)
Example: Example: Example: Did you speak re Example: Didn’t you speak re
You spoke reall You did ally well? ally well?
y well. not Did I have my breakfast? Didn’t I have my breakfast?
speak reall
I had my y well.
breakfast.
I did not
have my
breakfast.
Rules and Points to Remember When Using the Simple Past
Tense
When conjugating a verb in the simple past tense, there are a few points you have to bear in mind.
● Conjugating regular verbs – In order to present the main verb in the sentence, you just have
to add ‘-ed’ to the end of the regular verb and ‘-d’ to the end of a regular verb which ends with
an ‘e’.
For example: Reach – reached, kick – kicked, walk – walked, confess – confessed, work –
worked
Like – liked, introduce – introduced, force – forced, announce – announced,
` notice – noticed
● Verbs that remain the same – Some verbs take the same spelling as the base verb and
remain the same in the past tense.
For example: Cut – cut, put – put, hurt – hurt, set – set, hit – hit
● Verbs that take different spelling patterns – Irregular verbs are seen to follow different
spelling patterns and there is no rule as such to explain why they are so.
For example: Buy – bought, think – thought, draw – drew, drink – drank, see – saw
Forming the Simple Past Tense – Examples
To help you understand how the simple past tense can be used, here are a few examples.
Referring to an action that happened in the past
● We went to the park yesterday evening.
● I totally forgot about the meeting.
● Manu opened the door for the guests.
Referring to an action that was true for some time in the past
● Karthik played tennis when he was in school.
● Miss Holly worked as a guest lecturer at our college.
● Santana used to love reading fantasy novels when she was younger.
Referring to an action that took place several times in the past
● I worked as an academic counselor for six months.
● We enjoyed playing Pictionary every time we met.
● My father dropped me at school every day till I entered high school.
Test Your Understanding of Simple Past Tense
Fill in the blanks with the simple past tense of the verbs mentioned in the brackets:
1. I _____ (pay) the bills already.
2. The teacher ________ (motivate) her kids to stand up for themselves and their fellow classmates.
3. Reena ______ (to be) a student at Delhi University.
4. ______ you ______ (finish – interrogative) the science and math assignments?
5. Tina __________ (know – negative) about yesterday’s test.
6. _________ he ________ (complete – negative interrogative) the paper yet?
7. Rahul __________ (play) basketball in college.
8. Will and Emma _________ (to be) at the fair.
9. Manish _________ (sell) all the sachets.
10. I _________ (think) about it, but I don’t think it will work.
