Regular Verbs – English Grammar Exercises for A1
Explaining a Delay
You have just arrived very late to meet your friends at a cafe. You need to explain the terrible morning you had and why you are late. Choose the correct form of the verb to complete your story and ask for their understanding.
1 I am so sorry I’m late! It ______ heavily when I left my house this morning.
(a) rain
(b) rained
(c) rainned
2 I ______ at the bus stop in the cold for thirty minutes!
(a) waited
(b) wait
(c) waiting
3 My umbrella was broken, so I ______ back inside the house.
(a) walkt
(b) walk
(c) walked
4 I ______ to find my other umbrella in the closet.
(a) lookked
(b) looked
(c) look
5 Then, my mom ______ me to help her with something quickly before I left.
(a) ask
(b) askt
(c) asked
6 I ______ to run to the train station, but the street was too wet and slippery.
(a) tryed
(b) try
(c) tried
7 I didn’t ______ to be late, I promise!
(a) want
(b) wanted
(c) wanting
8 The bus finally arrived, but it didn’t ______ at my stop because it was full!
(a) stopped
(b) stop
(c) stops
9 ______ you guys wait for me for a long time?
(a) Did
(b) Were
(c) Do
10 I ______ my brother to ask for a ride in his car.
(a) call
(b) called
(c) calld
11 He didn’t ______ the phone because he was still sleeping.
(a) answered
(b) answers
(c) answer
12 After that, I ______ a taxi using the app on my phone.
(a) booked
(b) bookked
(c) book
13 The taxi ______ very slowly because of the bad weather.
(a) travel
(b) traveling
(c) traveled
14 We ______ in a terrible traffic jam near the bridge for a long time.
(a) stay
(b) stayed
(c) staied
15 I ______ to the driver, but he didn’t know a faster way to get here.
(a) talkt
(b) talked
(c) talk
16 I ______ a message to our group chat to tell you. Did you see it?
(a) typeed
(b) type
(c) typed
17 The rain finally ______ just five minutes ago!
(a) stopped
(b) stoped
(c) stop
18 I didn’t ______ the weather forecast yesterday, so I wasn’t prepared.
(a) checked
(b) check
(c) checking
19 ______ the bad weather delay your bus too, or just mine?
(a) Does
(b) Did
(c) Was
20 Anyway, I ______ as fast as I could from the drop-off point to the cafe.
(a) hurryed
(b) hurried
(c) hurry
ANSWER KEY & EXPLANATIONS
1 (b) rained
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “rain” to show a completed action in the past.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is the present tense (basic grammar error). (c) incorrectly doubles the ‘n’ (common spelling mistake; we only double the consonant in short CVC words, and “rain” has two vowels).
2 (a) waited
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “wait”.
- Why the others are wrong: (b) is present tense. (c) is the continuous form and is missing the “to be” verb (basic structural error).
3 (c) walked
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “walk”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) spells the word exactly how it sounds with a ‘t’, which is a very common mistake for A1 learners. (b) is present tense.
4 (b) looked
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “look”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) incorrectly doubles the ‘k’ (common mistake). (c) is present tense.
5 (c) asked
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “ask”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is present tense. (b) spells the word based on its pronunciation (‘askt’), a common spelling mistake.
6 (c) tried
- Why it is correct: “Try” ends in a consonant + y. We must change the ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add “-ed”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) forgets the “y to i” rule entirely (common mistake). (b) is present tense.
7 (a) want
- Why it is correct: In a negative past simple sentence, after the auxiliary “didn’t”, we must use the base form of the verb.
- Why the others are wrong: (b) is the “double past” mistake (didn’t + wanted), which is very common. (c) is the continuous form.
8 (b) stop
- Why it is correct: After “didn’t”, always use the base verb.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is the common “double past” mistake. (c) uses the third-person present tense form.
9 (a) Did
- Why it is correct: “Did” is the correct auxiliary verb to form a Past Simple question.
- Why the others are wrong: (b) “Were” is a common mistake; learners confuse the “to be” verb with the “do” auxiliary. We cannot use “were” with a main verb like “wait”. (c) is present tense.
10 (b) called
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “call”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is present tense. (c) forgets the ‘e’ before the ‘d’, a common spelling error.
11 (c) answer
- Why it is correct: After “didn’t”, use the base verb.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is the “double past” error. (b) is the present tense with an unnecessary ‘s’.
12 (a) booked
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “book”.
- Why the others are wrong: (b) incorrectly doubles the ‘k’ (common spelling mistake). (c) is present tense.
13 (c) traveled
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “travel”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is present tense. (b) is the continuous form missing an auxiliary verb.
14 (b) stayed
- Why it is correct: “Stay” ends in a vowel + y (a+y). Therefore, we do NOT change the ‘y’ to ‘i’; we just add “-ed”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is present tense. (c) incorrectly applies the “y to i” rule, which is a common exception mistake.
15 (b) talked
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “talk”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) spells the word as it sounds (‘talkt’), a common phonetic spelling error. (c) is present tense.
16 (c) typed
- Why it is correct: “Type” already ends in ‘e’, so we simply add ‘d’.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) adds a full “-ed” to a word ending in ‘e’, creating a double ‘e’ mistake. (b) is present tense.
17 (a) stopped
- Why it is correct: “Stop” is a short CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) verb. We must double the final consonant (‘p’) before adding “-ed”.
- Why the others are wrong: (b) forgets to double the ‘p’ (common mistake). (c) is present tense.
18 (b) check
- Why it is correct: After “didn’t”, use the base verb.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is the “double past” error (didn’t + checked). (c) is the continuous form.
19 (b) Did
- Why it is correct: Auxiliary verb for Past Simple questions.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is present tense. (c) uses the “to be” verb instead of the “do” auxiliary.
20 (b) hurried
- Why it is correct: “Hurry” ends in a consonant + y. We change ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add “-ed”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) forgets the spelling rule (common mistake). (c) is present tense.
GRAMMAR POINTS TO REMEMBER
When you need to explain why something happened (like why you are late), you use the Past Simple to tell the story step-by-step.
- The Basic Rule: Just add -ed (rain → rained, wait → waited).
- The “E” Rule: If the verb already has an -e at the end, only add -d (type → typed).
- The “Y” Rule:
- Consonant + y → change ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add -ed (try → tried, hurry → hurried).
- Vowel + y → do nothing, just add -ed (stay → stayed).
- The CVC Rule: For short verbs ending in Consonant-Vowel-Consonant, double the last letter (stop → stopped).
- The “Didn’t” Rule: This is the most important rule when making excuses! Always use the base verb after didn’t.
- Correct: I didn’t want to be late!
- Wrong: I didn’t wanted to be late!