Today, we’re taking another look at the tenses with a short mixed past tenses exercise. This one’s a little different to the usual gap-fills or scrambles that I’ve posted in the past, as it uses a sentence pairing style.

It’s taken from The English Tenses Exercise Book, one of the mixed tenses exercises used to test understanding of various aspects of the English tenses at the same time. For background detail on exactly how to use each tense, check out the collected articles in the archive here.

Mixed Past Tenses Exercise: Sentence Matching

Form logical past sentences using the fragments below. Each collection of eight fragments forms four complete sentences. Note that some clauses may fit flexibly, but only one combination should satisfy all four sentences of each question.

For example:

1. The detective followed the clues to the creepy house.
2. The detective was following clues when the thief struck again.
3. The detective had followed many clues before he found the suspect.
4. The detective had been following clues for three days while the thief was still out there.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Answers

1.

1. Neil was cycling when it started raining.
2. Neil had cycled home in the rain, so he arrived wet.
3. Neil cycled home in the rain yesterday.
4. Neil had been cycling since 9 a.m., so he stopped for lunch.

2.

1. Carla passed the salt to Jeremy after he asked for it.
2. Carla had been passing the same man all year when she walked to work.
3. Carla was passing the shop when a bracelet caught her eye.
4. Carla had passed this shop before; was she going the right way?

3.

1. Our teacher had given us a difficult assignment, so I could not go out.
2. Our teacher gave us too much homework this afternoon.
3. Our teacher had been giving us too much homework ever since term started.
4. Our teacher was giving us an exam when the bell rang.

4.

1. The band played until 3 a.m. last night.
2. The band had been playing for five hours before they had to stop.
3. The band were playing when the lights went out.
4. The band had played all the songs they knew and had to stop.

Want more English tenses exercises?

This exercise was taken from The English Tenses Exercise Book; if you found this useful, there are 160 more exercises in the book.