Past Simple Tense Quiz

Past Simple

• The past simple is the most common way of talking about past events or states that have finished.
• It is often used with past time references (e.g. yesterday, two years ago).

Past Events or States

• A past event could be one thing that happened in the past, or a repeated thing.
• Examples of past events: I stopped at a zebra crossing, We carried on with the test, We played tennis every day in August.
• A state is a situation without an action happening.
• Examples of states: We stayed at my grandparents' house last summer.

Forming the Past Simple

• The past simple is usually formed by adding d, ed, or ied to the base form of the verb.
• There are many irregular verbs that take on a completely different form in the past tense.

Time Expressions

• The most common time expressions used for the past simple are: yesterday, a week (month, year) ago, last (month, year, weekend, Monday) night, the day before yesterday, two days (months, years) ago.
• The time expression appears either at the beginning or at the end of the sentence – never in the middle of the sentence.

Examples

• Yesterday, I washed my car.
• Last week, I visited my friends.
• Last year, I broke my arm.
• Ten years ago, I studied Korean.