Past Perfect Continuous · Exercises
A1Beginner practice
First steps: had been + -ing before a past moment.
Play
- Practice10 exercises at your own pace
- Time Attack60 seconds, as many as you can
- Survival3 lives, harder as you go
- Tense SortDrag sentences into their tense — 60 seconds
- Timelines10 sentences to match to their timelines
- A1 Boss12 hits before you lose 3 lives
- Irregular MatchPair verbs with their past forms — 60 seconds
Want to mix tenses, go endless or pick exercise types? Set up your own session.
What you’ll practise at A1
- had been + -ing
- Spelling: waiting, running, lying
- Negatives: hadn’t been
- Questions: Had you been…?
- Timelines: what the tense means
Need a refresher? Learn the past perfect continuous: rules, tables and audio examples.
Sample exercises
A taste of what’s inside. In practice mode every exercise is freshly generated.
Is this sentence correct?
Lily had been painted for two hours when the doorbell rang.
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Lily had been painting for two hours when the doorbell rang.
“painted” should be “painting”. Past perfect continuous: had been + -ing — an activity that went on for a while before a moment in the past. After “had been” use the -ing form (painting).
Put the words in order to make a negative sentence.
swimming / the / we / for / long / sea / in / been / hadn’t
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We hadn’t been swimming in the sea for long.
Negative: hadn’t (had not) been + -ing.
Choose the right words.
She _____ singing in the shower for twenty minutes when the phone rang.
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She had been singing in the shower for twenty minutes when the phone rang.
Past perfect continuous: had been + -ing — an activity that went on for a while before a moment in the past. The form is the same for every subject: I / she / they had been…
Write the verb in the past perfect continuous.
She _____ (clean) her room for twenty minutes when the phone rang.
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She had been cleaning her room for twenty minutes when the phone rang.
Past perfect continuous: had been + -ing — an activity that went on for a while before a moment in the past. Just add -ing: clean → cleaning.
Choose the correct -ing form.
Tom had been _____ (run) in the park for twenty minutes when the phone rang.
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Tom had been running in the park for twenty minutes when the phone rang.
Short verbs ending in one vowel + one consonant double the consonant: run → running.
Which sentence matches the timeline?
(Timeline: Going on up to a moment in the past)
Show answer
You had been playing the guitar.
“had been playing” is the past perfect continuous (had been + -ing): going on up to a moment in the past.