Question

5.Complete these sentences with the present or past participles of the verbs in the brackets.
1. The film was..
(fascinate)
2. The store had
.....(close) by the time we got there.
3. It is a ....
(press) problem.
4. My uncle had
....(stay) at the hotel several times.​

Answer 1

Answer:

English Grammar: The Past Simple Tense

When you talk about something that happened in the past, use the Past Simple tense (also called the Simple Past tense).

For example:

“I live in the UK.” (Present Simple tense)

“Last year I lived in France.” (Past Simple tense)

When to use the Past Simple tense

We use the Past Simple tense for states and for actions:

I lived in France when I was a child. (state)

I got up early and then had a coffee. (action)

We use this tense to talk about events a long time ago and also more recent events. The important thing is that the events are in the past. For that reason we often use a time reference, such as “ago” or “last year”, for example.

Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. (distant past)

I spoke to Nigel just a minute ago. (recent past)

For more information, see our page on Past Tenses in English grammar.

How to form the Past Simple tense

The Past Simple tense does not change for the third person singular:

I lived

You lived

He / she lived

We lived

They lived

For many verbs, you can add -d or -ed to the infinitive to make the past tense.

live – lived

work – worked

receive – received

Other spelling notes

When the verb ends with a consonant + -y, change the -y to -i then add -ed:

hurry – hurried

carry – carried

study – studied

When the verb has a short vowel and consonant, double the consonant:

stop – stopped

ship – shipped

admit – admitted

hug – hugged

In British English, when the verb ends with a vowel and a single “l”, double the “l”:

travel – travelled

label – labelled

cancel – cancelled

(This is not the case in American English, when the “l” is not doubled.)

Pronunciation

The pronunciation of the Past Simple tense is either /t/, /d/ or /id/.

worked (/t/ sound)

lived, happened (/d/ sound)

hated (/id/ sound)

The pronunciation depends on the sound of the consonant or vowel before the -ed ending. It is difficult to remember all these pronunciation rules when you speak in English, but one common mistake is to use the /id/ ending (and not the correct /d/ ending) with verbs ending in a /n/ sound. For example, say “open – d” and “happen -d” and not “open – id” or “happen – id”.

The only time you need to use the /id/ sound in the Past Simple tense is with verbs that end with a /t/ or /d/ sound. For all other verbs, your mouth naturally finds either a /t/ or /d/ sound.