Past Perfect · Exercises
C2Proficient practice
Formal inversion, passives and subtle tense choices.
Play
- Practice10 exercises at your own pace
- Time Attack60 seconds, as many as you can
- Survival3 lives, harder as you go
- Tense SortDrag sentences into their tense — 60 seconds
- Timelines10 sentences to match to their timelines
- C2 Boss12 hits before you lose 3 lives
- Irregular MatchPair verbs with their past forms — 60 seconds
Want to mix tenses, go endless or pick exercise types? Set up your own session.
What you’ll practise at C2
- Past participles (gone, seen, written…)
- Negatives: hadn’t
- Questions: Had you…?
- Past perfect or past simple?
- Simple or continuous (had been doing)
- Reported speech: she said she had…
- Third conditional: If I had known…
- wish / if only + past perfect
- Inversion: Hardly had… / Had I known…
- Passive: had been done
- Timelines: what the tense means
Need a refresher? Learn the past perfect: rules, tables and audio examples.
Sample exercises
A taste of what’s inside. In practice mode every exercise is freshly generated.
Report what was said.
“I have finalised the budget,” Lucia said. → Lucia said she _____ (finalise) the budget.
Show answer
Lucia said she had finalised the budget.
In reported speech after “said”, the tense moves back: have + participle → had + past participle.
Choose the correct sentence.
Which sentence is correct?
Show answer
Had Leo and Emma listened to the instructions, they wouldn't have made so many mistakes.
In formal English you can drop “if” and invert: Had I known… = If I had known…
Write the verb to make a third conditional.
If the students _____ (read) the reviews, they wouldn't have bought that phone.
Show answer
If the students had read the reviews, they wouldn't have bought that phone.
Third conditional (an unreal past): If + had + participle, would (not) have + participle.
Write the verb to make a third conditional.
If she _____ (listen) to the instructions, she wouldn't have made so many mistakes.
Show answer
If she had listened to the instructions, she wouldn't have made so many mistakes.
Third conditional (an unreal past): If + had + participle, would (not) have + participle.
Choose the best form.
Ali _____ (live) in Paris for five years before he moved to London.
Show answer
Ali had been living in Paris for five years before he moved to London.
For an activity that had been going on for a period up to a past moment (for forty minutes … when), use the past perfect continuous: had been + -ing.
Write the verb in the past perfect or the past simple.
By the time the film started, they _____ (drink) the whole bottle of water.
Show answer
By the time the film started, they had drunk the whole bottle of water.
“By the time the film started” is a past moment; the action was already complete before it, so use the past perfect (had + participle).