Your task
Fill in the gap in each sentence with the correct word or phrase.
0 / 15 answered
Your score
0 / 150%
Keep practising! Focus on the explanations below.
Quick rule
The Past Perfect describes an action that was completed before another point or event in the past. It gives you a second layer of pastness: imagine the Past Simple as your main past timeline — the Past Perfect reaches further back to say "this happened even earlier."
alreadyjustnever … beforeby the time
See full explanation ↓About this exercise
This B2 set focuses on past perfect — 15 questions, each with an explanation of why the answer is right. English has twelve main tense forms: four presents (simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous), four pasts, and four futures. Each encodes a different perspective on time and aspect — whether an event is complete or ongoing, relevant to the present or purely historical, habitual or happening right now.
The rule in 30 seconds
The Past Perfect describes an action that was completed before another point or event in the past. It gives you a second layer of pastness: imagine the Past Simple as your main past timeline — the Past Perfect reaches further back to say "this happened even earlier."
Subject + had + past participlealreadyshe had already left
justhe had just finished
never … beforeI had never seen it before
by the timeby the time we arrived
after / beforeafter he had spoken
when (past ref.)when I got there, they had…
by + past timeby 2010, they had built…
as soon asas soon as she had read it