Regular Verbs – English Grammar Exercises for A1
Past Background & Experience
Imagine you are introducing yourself on your first day at a new job, or answering questions in a part-time job interview. You need to talk about where you lived and worked before. Choose the correct form of the verb to complete each sentence.
1 Hello everyone. Before I moved to this city, I ______ in London for three years.
(a) lived
(b) live
(c) lives
2 In my last job, I ______ as a customer service assistant.
(a) work
(b) worked
(c) working
3 I ______ my university degree in Business Administration in 2022
(a) finish
(b) finishs
(c) finished
4 At the cafe, I ______ a lot of tourists with their orders every day.
(a) helped
(b) help
(c) helpt
5 I ______ to this neighborhood last month for a new opportunity.
(a) move
(b) moved
(c) moveed
6 I really ______ my time at my previous company, but I wanted a change.
(a) enjoyed
(b) enjoys
(c) enjoied
7 I ______ to learn some Spanish when I lived in Madrid.
(a) tryed
(b) tried
(c) try
8 I didn’t ______ far from the office, so I usually walked to work.
(a) lived
(b) living
(c) live
9 At the restaurant, my duties were simple. I ______ tables and took orders.
(a) cleaned
(b) clean
(c) cleanned
10 Sometimes I ______ late at the shop because of the busy holiday season.
(a) stay
(b) staied
(c) stayed
11 My old manager often ______ me to train the new staff members.
(a) askt
(b) asked
(c) ask
12 I ______ French at high school, but I only remember a little bit now.
(a) studied
(b) studyed
(c) study
13 We ______ a very old computer system at my last job.
(a) use
(b) useed
(c) used
14 ______ you work in a team at your previous job, or did you work alone?
(a) Were
(b) Do
(c) Did
15 When I ______ working there, I didn’t know anything about sales.
(a) started
(b) start
(c) starting
16 I didn’t ______ to leave my old job, but my family relocated here.
(a) wanted
(b) want
(c) wants
17 Every morning, I ______ the phone and replied to customer emails.
(a) answer
(b) answered
(c) answerred
18 My boss and I ______ the weekly schedule every Monday morning.
(a) planed
(b) plan
(c) planned
19 Did you ______ any heavy boxes when you worked at the warehouse?
(a) carry
(b) carried
(c) carryed
20 I ______ looking for a new job because I wanted to develop new skills.
(a) stoped
(b) stopped
(c) stop
ANSWER KEY & EXPLANATIONS
1 (a)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: “Lived” is the past simple of “live”. We use it to talk about a completed state in the past.
- Why the others are wrong: (b) is present tense. (c) is third-person singular present tense.
2 (b)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “work” to describe a past job.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is present tense. (c) is the continuous form and is missing the “to be” verb (was working).
3 (c)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: “Finished” is the regular past tense of “finish”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is present tense. (b) is grammatically incorrect spelling for present tense.
4 (a)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “help”.
- Why the others are wrong: (b) is present tense. (c) is a common spelling mistake because “-ed” sounds like a “t” when spoken.
5 (b)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: “Move” already ends in “e”, so we just add “d”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is present tense. (c) incorrectly adds a full “-ed”, creating a double “e” error.
6 (a)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: For verbs ending in a vowel + y (enjoy), we just add “-ed”.
- Why the others are wrong: (b) is present tense. (c) incorrectly changes the “y” to “i”. (Only consonant + y changes to i).
7 (b)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: For verbs ending in a consonant + y (try), change the “y” to “i” and add “-ed”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) forgets to change the “y” to “i”, a very common A1 mistake. (c) is present tense.
8 (c)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: After the negative auxiliary “didn’t”, we MUST use the base form of the verb (“live”).
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is the “double past” mistake (didn’t + lived). (b) is the continuous form.
9 (a)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “clean”.
- Why the others are wrong: (b) is present tense. (c) incorrectly doubles the “n”.
10 (c)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: “Stay” ends in a vowel + y (a+y), so we just add “-ed”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is present tense. (b) incorrectly changes the “y” to “i”.
11 (b)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “ask”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) spells the word exactly how it sounds, which is a common spelling mistake for learners. (c) is present tense.
12 (a)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: “Study” ends in a consonant + y, so change “y” to “i” and add “-ed”.
- Why the others are wrong: (b) forgets the spelling rule. (c) is present tense.
13 (c)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: “Use” ends in “e”, so just add “d”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is present tense. (b) creates a spelling error by adding a full “-ed”.
14 (c)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: “Did” is the correct auxiliary verb to make a Past Simple question.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) “Were” is a common mistake; students confuse the “to be” verb with “do”. We don’t use “were” with a main verb like “work”. (b) “Do” is present tense.
15 (a)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “start”.
- Why the others are wrong: (b) is present tense. (c) is the continuous form.
16 (b)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: In negative past sentences, use “didn’t” + base verb.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is the common “double past” mistake (didn’t wanted). (c) adds an unnecessary “s”.
17 (b)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: Adds “-ed” to the base verb “answer”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) is present tense. (c) incorrectly doubles the “r” (the stress is on the first syllable: AN-swer).
18 (c)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: “Plan” is a short CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) verb. We double the final consonant (‘n’) before adding “-ed”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) forgets to double the ‘n’ (which changes the pronunciation to “plane”). (b) is present tense.
19 (a)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: In a question (Did + subject + base verb), the main verb must remain in its base form.
- Why the others are wrong: (b) uses the past form after “Did” (double past mistake). (c) is a spelling error.
20 (b)
Explanation:
- Why it is correct: “Stop” is a CVC verb. Double the final consonant (‘p’) and add “-ed”.
- Why the others are wrong: (a) forgets to double the ‘p’. (c) is present tense.
GRAMMAR POINTS TO REMEMBER
When you introduce yourself and talk about where you lived or worked in the past, use the Past Simple tense. By using the “-ed” ending, you clearly tell the listener that this period of your life is finished.
- The Basic Rule: Add -ed (work → worked, start → started).
- The “E” Rule: If it ends in -e, just add -d (live → lived, use → used).
- The “Y” Rule: * Consonant + y → change ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add -ed (study → studied).
- Vowel + y → just add -ed (enjoy → enjoyed).
- The CVC Rule: For short verbs ending in Consonant-Vowel-Consonant, double the last letter (plan → planned, stop → stopped).
- The Golden Rule for Negatives & Questions: If you use “didn’t” or “Did”, the main verb goes back to normal!
- Correct: I didn’t live in Paris. / Did you work here?
- Wrong: I didn’t lived in Paris. / Did you worked here?