Past Simple Grammar Drill
Free past simple exercises: 30 questions on regular and irregular past verbs — multiple choice, gap fill and listening dictation — with answers and explanations. Practice online or print as an ESL worksheet.
📖 Full guide: Past Simple: Rules, Examples and Common Mistakes — rules table, the mistakes learners make most, and FAQs.
Past Simple: Frequently Asked Questions
When do we use the past simple tense?
We use the past simple for completed actions and states in the past, often with time words: yesterday, last week, in 2019, ago. Example: I visited my grandmother last Sunday.
How do we form the past simple of regular verbs?
Add -ed to the base verb (work → worked, play → played). Verbs ending in -e only add -d (like → liked), and a consonant + y changes to -ied (study → studied).
What is the past simple of irregular verbs?
Irregular verbs change in their own way and must be memorised: go → went, see → saw, eat → ate, buy → bought, take → took. See the full 120-verb table on this site.