Arsenio’s ESL Podcast: Season 4 – Episode 10 – Grammar – Past Tenses (Upper Intermediate)

Here we go! This is the first of its kind! Past tenses are breaking in the grammar episodes of upper-intermediate, and today will be a bit difficult with some good exercises down below. For those of you who have been following me for a long time, this is going to be a test for you.

Name the tenses of the verbs in sentences 1-6

1. They reported having a positive experience than the commuters who had been sitting alone.
2. They asked one group to talk to the person next to them while they were traveling to work.
3. Social media has revolutionized the way we relate to one another.
4. After they had walked around the campus, the groups were given games to play.
5. Robert has been studying the roots for 20 years.
6. Two people approached commuters on a Tokyo train as they were about to/were going to get on a train.

• A. for finished actions or situations at specific times in the past.
• B. for activities in progress at a moment in the past.
• C. to talk about the future in the past.
• D. for actions that happened at an unspecified moment in the past.
• E. for actions that happened in the past before another moment or action in the past.
• F. for actions that started in the past and are either incomplete or finished very recently, especially when the duration of the action is important.
• G. to talk about actions that happened before another action in the past when the duration of the action is important.

Choose the correct alternative.

1. We have made/made friends with some Swiss students on holiday last summer.
2. I’ve/I’d been writing to a pen pal in Italy for the last three years.
3. On the way to work, we chatted/have been chatting to some people on the bus.
4. I know quite a lot about psychology because I’ve been reading/read quite a few books about it.
5. My dad has been/was on an American football team, but he retired.
6. He couldn’t tell us where he bought it because he’d forgotten/has been forgetting it.
7. I had/have been having problems with my phone for the last five weeks, so I went to the show to fix it.
8. They left/were leaving the cinema when they saw an old friend, so they went/were going back to see him.
9. She’s my colleague. We always see/have always seen eye-to-eye.
10. Hey, John! I gotta run now. My flight has arrived/been arriving.

Correct Past Tense Forms – In The Podcast