Past Perfect

Exercises

Explanation

1. Form

Affirmative

had + past participle (V3)

• I had finished my lunch before 2 p.m.

• She had left when I called.

Negative

had not (hadn’t) + past participle

• I hadn’t packed my suitcase before the taxi arrived.

• They hadn’t visited the museum before last summer.

Questions

Had + subject + past participle?

• Had you seen the news before I told you?

• Had he washed the dishes before dinner?

Wh- questions:
Wh-word + had + subject + V3?

• Where had she put the keys?

• What had they done earlier?

2. When Do We Use Past Perfect?

A. To show one past action happened before another

Use Past Perfect for the first action and Past Simple for the second one.

• She had turned off the lights before she left the house.

• Mark had eaten breakfast before he went to work.

• They had finished the project before the deadline came.

B. To show a past result

The result is clear in the past.

• She was angry because someone had scratched her car.

• The ground was wet because it had rained earlier.

• He was tired because he had worked all night.

3. Time Expressions for Past Perfect

These words help show the earlier past action:

• before

• after

• by (by 5 p.m., by that morning, by the end of the day)

• never before

• by the time

• no sooner… than

• hardly… when

Examples:

• They had arrived by lunchtime.

• I had never tried sushi before that day.

• By the time we got to the cinema, the movie had started.

4. Hardly / No Sooner

These show that one action happened immediately after another.

Hardly… when

• Hardly had the concert begun when the lights went out.

No sooner… than

• No sooner had I opened the door than the dog ran outside.

Quick Summary

Past Perfect shows what happened first in the past and makes the order of events clear and easy to understand.