Past Perfect Exercises Intermediate: 25 Best Free Questions, Part 1

This page has past perfect exercises intermediate learners can play as a free Jeopardy game with 25 questions: choose the tense, fill in the gaps, join sentences, correct mistakes and test the rules. Need to review first? Read our Past Perfect Tense lesson, then come back to play. When you finish, try our second set of past perfect exercises on the form, the third conditional, wishes and reported speech.

Past Perfect Exercises Intermediate Level: Play the Jeopardy Game

What Is in Past Perfect Exercises Intermediate Level?

Quick answer: past perfect exercises intermediate level practise the tense formed with had + past participle, which shows that one past action was completed before another past action or moment. This page gives you 25 free questions in a Jeopardy game, and the answer key lists the correct answer to every question.

The board has five categories with five questions each. In the first, you choose the correct tense. In the second, you type the correct tense of the verbs in brackets. In the third, you join two sentences with after, before, because or by the time. In the fourth, you find and correct a mistake. In the fifth, you test the rules and the meaning of the past perfect.

How to Play Past Perfect Exercises Intermediate Level

• Choose 1 to 6 teams. You can play alone, with 2 teams or with the whole class.
• Teams take turns to pick a tile. The bigger the number, the harder the question.
• You have 20 seconds. The timer runs on its own and has Pause and Restart timer buttons.
• For multiple-choice questions, click the answer. For gap questions, type the missing words and press Check. For sentence questions, write your sentence, then the teacher presses Correct or Wrong.
• A right answer wins the points. A wrong answer puts that team out, and the next team can try.
• The Reveal answer button shows the correct answer with no points. It is separate from the timer.
• A tile disappears after its question is closed. Use the -100 button for a penalty and the Full screen button to play on a projector.

Past Perfect Exercises Intermediate Level: Choose the Tense

The first challenge in past perfect exercises intermediate level is to choose between the past perfect, the simple past, the present perfect and the past continuous. Start by finding the two past events in the sentence, then ask which one happened first. The first event takes the past perfect (had + past participle). The later event takes the simple past.

Look at this example: Lina had packed her bag before the taxi arrived. Two things happened. Lina packed her bag, and then the taxi arrived. Because packing came first, it is in the past perfect, and arrived is in the simple past. If you put the events in order, you get: pack, then arrive.

The past continuous is a different idea. It describes an action in progress at a moment in the past, not an action that was finished before it. Compare When Adam got to the café, his friends had already ordered (they finished ordering first) with When Adam got to the café, his friends were ordering (they were in the middle of ordering). The present perfect does not fit either sentence, because it connects the past with now, and these sentences are only about the past.

Signal Words: After, Before, By the Time and When

Signal words show the order of events. The signal word does not always sit next to the past perfect verb, so read the whole sentence.

• After: the clause with after is the earlier event. After Lina had packed her bag, she called a taxi.
• Before: the clause with before is the later event. Lina had packed her bag before she called a taxi.
• By the time: the clause with by the time is the later event. By the time the teacher came in, the students had opened their books.
• When: it can introduce the later or the earlier event, so check the meaning. When the bell rang, the students had stood up (they stood up first). When the bell rang, the students stood up (they stood up after the bell).
• Already, just, never and yet: these words often appear with the past perfect, as in He had already phoned.

Be careful with when. If both clauses are in the simple past, the events usually follow each other in time. If one clause is in the past perfect, that event came first.

Past Perfect Exercises Intermediate Level: Fill in the Gaps

In the gap questions you type the answer yourself, so spelling and word order matter. The game accepts the full form and the short form of a negative verb, for example had not forgotten and hadn’t forgotten. It also accepts British and American spelling when both exist, such as cancelled and canceled.

Affirmative and Negative Forms in Past Perfect Exercises Intermediate Level

The affirmative form is subject + had + past participle: They had lived in Fes for ten years. The negative form is subject + had not (hadn’t) + past participle: She had not slept well. The word had never changes, whether the subject is I, you, he, she, it, we or they. In a question, had comes before the subject: Had the match started when you got there?

Words in brackets such as (already / phone) tell you which extra word to use. Put already between had and the past participle: had already phoned. The game checks the exact words, so type all three: had, already and the participle.

Irregular Participles to Know

Many mistakes in past perfect exercises come from irregular verbs. Learn the past participle, not only the simple past. These verbs often appear:

• write, wrote, written
• give, gave, given
• take, took, taken
• see, saw, seen
• begin, began, begun
• break, broke, broken
• speak, spoke, spoken
• choose, chose, chosen

For a longer list, see our irregular verbs list and practise with these irregular verbs exercises. Regular verbs are easier: add -ed to the base form, as in had walked or had painted.

Join the Sentences in Past Perfect Exercises Intermediate Level

In the sentence questions you write one sentence from two short ones. The past perfect shows which event came first. Read the two sentences, decide which event happened first, and then decide where to put had.

Joining Sentences With After and Before

With after, the earlier event goes in the clause after the word after, in the past perfect. Lina packed her bag. Then she called a taxi. becomes After Lina had packed her bag, she called a taxi.

With before, the earlier event is in the main clause and takes the past perfect, while the clause after before is in the simple past: Before she called a taxi, Lina had packed her bag. You can also put the time clause second: Lina had packed her bag before she called a taxi. Remember the comma when the time clause comes first.

Joining Sentences With Because and By the Time

With because, the reason is the earlier event, so it takes the past perfect. The students were nervous. They had not revised. becomes The students were nervous because they had not revised.

With by the time, the event after by the time is the later one in the simple past, and the main clause takes the past perfect. The taxi arrived. Lina had already packed. becomes By the time the taxi arrived, Lina had already packed. The teacher can accept another correct order of the clauses, as long as the earlier event is in the past perfect.

Correct the Mistake in Past Perfect Exercises Intermediate Level

Each correction question contains one mistake with the past perfect. Read the whole sentence first, find the verb form, and ask three questions. Which event happened first? Is the auxiliary had? Is the main verb a past participle? These are the mistakes you will meet most often.

Mistake 1: Past Perfect With a Finished Time

Use the simple past, not the past perfect, when you mention a finished time and only one past event: yesterday, last week, in 2019 or two days ago. Wrong: I had met my cousin last Sunday. Right: I met my cousin last Sunday. The past perfect needs a second past event or moment as a reference point.

Mistake 2: Have Instead of Had

Have and has belong to the present perfect. In a story about the past, use had. Wrong: After the guests have left, we cleaned the house. Right: After the guests had left, we cleaned the house.

Mistake 3: Did and Had Together

Did and had are never used together as auxiliaries for the same verb. Wrong: We didn’t had prepared a plan. Right: We hadn’t prepared a plan. Also check the verb after had. It must be a past participle, so had wrote is wrong and had written is right.

Mistake 4: Missing Had in the Earlier Event

Sometimes the earlier event is wrongly in the simple past. Wrong: When the lesson began, the teacher already prepared the board. Right: When the lesson began, the teacher had already prepared the board. After you correct a sentence, read it again slowly. Does it sound natural, and does the order of events make sense?

Rules and Meaning: Past Perfect or Simple Past?

The last category of the board tests whether you understand the rules, not only the form. Three ideas will help you.

• The past perfect needs a reference point in the past: a second past action, or a past time such as by six o’clock or by the end of the term.
• If there is only one past action, use the simple past.
• When words like after and before already make the order clear, speakers often use the simple past in both clauses. After the bus left, we walked home and After the bus had left, we walked home are both correct, but the past perfect makes the order very clear. In this game, use the past perfect when the question practises it.

Remember the meaning too. Had + past participle tells the listener that the action is finished and that it is the earlier one. You can use it to give a reason or a result: Lina felt calm because she had packed the night before.

For a full explanation with more examples, read the Past Perfect Tense lesson. You can also read the past perfect explanation on British Council LearnEnglish. To compare a similar tense, try our present perfect vs simple past exercises.

How to Get a High Score in Past Perfect Exercises Intermediate Level

• Find the two past events first, then mark the earlier one.
• Check the auxiliary. The past perfect always has had, never did, has or have.
• Check the participle. For irregular verbs, say the three forms aloud.
• In gap questions, read the words in brackets again and type every word, including already or not.
• In sentence questions, write the whole sentence before the judgement, and check the comma.
• In a team, give an answer in the first ten seconds, then use the rest of the time to check it.
• Use Reveal answer to learn from a question you missed.
• Play again after a day or two and try to beat your score.

When you finish the game, write five sentences about your own day or week with the past perfect: two affirmative, two negative and one question.

FAQ: Past Perfect Exercises Intermediate Level

More on This Theme

• Past Perfect Tense: the full lesson
• Past Perfect Exercises: 30 Best Free Jeopardy Questions with Answers
• Present Perfect vs Simple Past Exercises
• Irregular verbs list
• Practice Irregular Verbs Exercises
• Free English Grammar Exercises for Moroccan Students

Level: B1 · See more B1 exercises