Past Perfect · Exercises
B2Upper intermediate practice
had been doing, reported speech and the passive.
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
- B2 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 B2
- Past participles (gone, seen, written…)
- Negatives: hadn’t
- Questions: Had you…?
- Short answers
- by the time / already / never … before
- Past perfect or past simple?
- Simple or continuous (had been doing)
- Reported speech: she said she had…
- Third conditional: If I had known…
- wish / if only + past perfect
- Passive: had been done
- Timelines: what the tense means
Need a refresher? Learn the past perfect: rules, tables and audio examples.
Sample exercises
A taste of what’s inside. In practice mode every exercise is freshly generated.
Write the past perfect simple or continuous.
By the time the guests arrived, Jack and Leo _____ (run) ten kilometres.
Show answer
By the time the guests arrived, Jack and Leo had run ten kilometres.
For a completed amount (five emails, three chapters), use the past perfect simple — not the continuous.
Report what was said.
“I repaired the roof,” Hannah said. → Hannah said she _____ (repair) the roof.
Show answer
Hannah said she had repaired the roof.
In reported speech after “said”, the tense moves back: past simple → had + past participle.
Write the past perfect simple or continuous.
My flatmates _____ (study) for hours when they finally understood the problem.
Show answer
My flatmates had been studying for hours when they finally understood the problem.
For an activity that had been going on for a period up to a past moment (for forty minutes … when), use the past perfect continuous: had been + -ing.
Put the words in order to make a negative sentence.
then / hadn't / by / my / the / handed / in / report / flatmate
Show answer
My flatmate hadn't handed in the report by then.
Negative: hadn’t (had not) + past participle, for every subject. My flatmate hadn't handed in the report by then.
Write the verb in the past perfect.
By the time the plane landed, my older brother _____ (clean) the windows.
Show answer
By the time the plane landed, my older brother had cleaned the windows.
“By the time the plane landed” is a past moment; the action was already complete before it, so use the past perfect (had + participle).
Make the sentence negative.
Max and Amara had cleaned their room by that evening.
Show answer
Max and Amara hadn't cleaned their room by that evening.
Negative: hadn’t (had not) + past participle, for every subject. Max and Amara hadn't cleaned their room by that evening.