English Grammar Exercises for A1 – Past simple affirmative: irregular verbs

1. Write the past simple form of the verbs.

5   grow   ……………………

6   have   ……………………

7   say      ……………………

8   sing     ……………………

2. Complete the sentences with verbs from exercise 1.

1   My mum …………………… some pizzas at the supermarket.

2   ‘Good morning, everyone,’ …………………… the teacher.

3   Liam …………………… lunch in a café in town.

4   I …………………… to study English when I was eight.

5   Martin …………………… a song at the school concert.

6   Last year, we …………………… potatoes in our garden.

7   David …………………… a train from London to Edinburgh.

8   Oh, no! Who …………………… this glass?

3. Put the time expressions in order, with the most recent first.

last month      last night      last week      last year

the day before yesterday      three months ago

two years ago      yesterday afternoon      yesterday morning

6   …………………………….

7   …………………………….

8   …………………………….

9   …………………………….

4. Rewrite the sentences in the past tense. Add the time expression in brackets.

1   I wear trainers to school. (yesterday)

     I wore trainers to school yesterday.

2   Sally and I take the bus to school. (the day before yesterday)

     ……………………………………

3   Susan sleeps until ten o’clock. (yesterday morning)

     ……………………………………

4   My dad does a lot of housework. (last week)

     ……………………………………

5   I spend a lot of money on clothes. (last weekend)

     ……………………………………

6   My mum makes cakes. (yesterday afternoon)

     ……………………………………

5. Complete the text. Use the past simple form of the verbs in brackets. Then listen and check.

ALBERT EINSTEIN 1……………………. (be) born in 1879 in Germany. He 2……………………. (hate) school. His teachers 3……………………. (think) he wasn’t very clever, and he 4……………………. (leave) school at the age of fifteen. But he 5……………………. (love) science, and he 6……………………. (read) lots of books on his own. When he was 23, he 7……………………. (move) to Switzerland and 8……………………. (get) a job in an office. In his free time, he 9……………………. (write) about physics and the universe, and he 10……………………. (send) his work to universities. In 1994, he 11……………………. (return) to Germany and 12……………………. (become) a professor at a university in Berlin. There, he developed new ideas about time, space and atoms. In 1921, he 13……………………. (win) the Nobel Prize for Physics.

In 1933, he 14……………………. (decide) to leave Germany and 15……………………. (go) to the USA, where he 16……………………. (live) for the rest of his life. He 17……………………. (die) in 1955 at the age of 76. Few people 18……………………. (can) understand his ideas at that time, but now they are an important part of physics.