Past Perfect · Exercises
C1Advanced practice
Third conditional, wishes and Hardly had… inversion.
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- 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
- C1 Boss12 hits before you lose 3 lives
- Irregular MatchPair verbs with their past forms — 60 seconds
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What you’ll practise at C1
- Past participles (gone, seen, written…)
- Negatives: hadn’t
- Questions: Had you…?
- 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
- Inversion: Hardly had… / Had I known…
- 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.
Choose the past participle.
My sister had _____ (make) the sandwiches before the shop opened.
Show answer
My sister had made the sandwiches before the shop opened.
“make” is irregular: make – made – made. After had, use the past participle (made).
Past perfect or past simple?
By the time the lights went out, Hiro _____ (go) to bed.
Show answer
By the time the lights went out, Hiro had gone to bed.
“By the time the lights went out” is a past moment; the action was already complete before it, so use the past perfect (had + participle).
Write the verb in the past perfect passive.
The files _____ (delete) by Monday.
Show answer
The files had been deleted by Monday.
Past perfect passive: had been + past participle (the action was complete before that past moment).
Report what was said.
“I prepared the food,” Ali said. → Ali said he _____ (prepare) the food.
Show answer
Ali said he had prepared the food.
In reported speech after “said”, the tense moves back: past simple → had + past participle.
Make the sentence negative.
My classmates had fed the cat before the lights went out.
Show answer
My classmates hadn't fed the cat before the lights went out.
Negative: hadn’t (had not) + past participle, for every subject. My classmates hadn't fed the cat before the lights went out.
Choose the correct sentence.
Which sentence is correct?
Show answer
No sooner had Grace got home than the power went off.
“No sooner had + subject + participle … than …” (formal): the second action came immediately after the first.