Practice:
Simple past affirmative, negative interrogative exercises pdf with answers.
simple past tense positive negative interrogative explanation
Study this example:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an Austrian musician and composer. He lived from 1756 to 1791. He started composing at the age of five and wrote more than 600 pieces of music.
He was only 35 years old when he died.
Lived/started/wrote/was/died are all past simple.
Very often the past simple ends in –ed (regular verbs):
I work in a travel agency now. Before that I worked in a department store.
We invited them to our party, but they decided not to come.
The police stopped me on my way home last night.
Laura passed her exam because she studied very hard.
Many verbs are irregular. Some of them do not end in -ed. For example:
write —> wrote Mozart wrote more than 600 pieces of music.
see —> saw We saw Tanya in town a few days ago.
go —> went I went to the cinema three times last week.
shut —> shut It was cold, so I shut the window.
In questions and negatives we use did/didn’t + infinitive (enjoy/see/go etc.):
I enjoyed
She saw
They went
Did you enjoy?
Did she see?
Did they go?
I didn’t enjoy.
She didn’t see.
They didn’t go.
a: Did you go out last night?
b: Yes, I went to the cinema, but I didn’t enjoy the film much.
‘When did Mr Thomas die?’ ‘About ten years ago.’
They didn’t invite us to the party, so we didn’t go.
‘Did you have time to do the shopping?’ ’No, I didn’t.’
In the following examples, do is the main verb in the sentence (did … do / didn’t do):
The past of be (am/is/are) is was/were:
I/he/she/it was/wasn’t
We/you/they were/weren’t
Was I/he/she/it?
Were we/you/they?
Note that we do not use did in negatives and questions with was/were:
I was angry because they were late.
Was the weather good when you were on holiday?
They weren’t able to come because they were so busy.
Did you go out last night or were you too tired?
