GRAMMAR Exercise D [B2-] Past Present or Present Perfect

PAST PERFECT TENSE

We use past perfect to report

events that happened before some point in the past

had + 3^rd form of the main verb

Past perfect sentences

Last visit (in May), you said that you had started on a new drug. Are you still taking it?
Since May, Ms. Brown has been on donepezil for her Alzheimer’s. Before May, she had done only memory exercises.

Past perfect questions

We only use the helping verb ‘had’
The word order changes

‘had’ + (person/place/thing) + 3^rd form of the main verb

EXAMPLES

Before the new drug, had you tried relaxation techniques?
Before donepezil, had Ms. Brown taken any other drugs?

In past perfect w-questions (who, what, when, where, why, which, how), the w-word goes before ‘had’:

EXAMPLES

What techniques had you tried before you started the drugs?
What had happened before they started the donepezil?

SPEAKING EXERCISE D

Practice repeating aloud each example sentence in this tutorial. Focus on the common collocations, running them together until they flow as one expression. The collocations are underlined.