6/25/2020 Past Tense Tips in an OET Letter

OET Writing Tips: Using Past Tenses

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6/25/2020 Past Tense Tips in an OET Letter

Each of the tenses in English (past, present, and future) has four aspects
(simple, perfect, continuous, and perfect continuous). Of course, these
tenses each have di erent meanings and re ect di erent elements of
time. They should be employed carefully throughout any form of writing,
including the OET writing sub-test (https://edubenchmark.com/oet-writing-
correction).

Using the past tenses accurately

Having a high degree of English pro ciency requires being able to use
each of the tenses accurately. That means knowing how to form it
correctly (including positive, negative, and interrogative forms) and also
knowing when it should be used.

To put it succinctly, the past tenses of the English language look like
this:

Tense Positive Negative Question

Past simple: Carmen ate. Carmen didn’t eat. Did Carmen eat?

Past continuous: Carmen was eating. Carmen wasn’t eating. Was Carmen eating?

Past perfect: Carmen had eaten. Carmen hadn’t eaten. Had Carmen eaten?

Past perfect Carmen had been Carmen hadn’t been Had Carmen been
continuous: eating. eating. eating?

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The following is brief guide to the situations in which these four tenses
are used in English, although there may be other, less common instances
not included here.

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When to use the di erent past tenses

The past simple is used for:
    1. actions that were completed in the past.
        • She graduated in 2010.
        • He moved out three years ago.
    2. routine actions in the past.
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6/25/2020 Past Tense Tips in an OET Letter

        • I called her every evening.

        • They spoke with their grandfather often.

The past continuous is used for:

    1. past actions during a stated period of time.
        • They were driving to Adelaide last night.
        • She was reading a book at ten o’clock.
    2. longer actions that were interrupted by a shorter action.
        • I was making dinner when I cut my hand.
        • He was driving to the dentist when he saw the sign.
    3. an action interrupted by another action.
        • They were listening to music when the doorbell rang.
        • The dog was sleeping when the reworks started.

The past perfect is used for:

    1. describing the past from the perspective of another time later in
the past.
        • I was hungry because I had not eaten for hours.
        • We were ghting because we had disagreed about the music in
the car.
    2. describing repeated or extended situations
        • We had lived in London for nine years.
        • By then, they had dated for a long time.
    3. explaining a situation
        • I was con dent because I had studied really hard.
        • They were scared because the animal had already bitten people.

The past perfect continuous is used for:

    1. actions that occurred further back in time that other events, but
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6/25/2020 Past Tense Tips in an OET Letter

which continued for longer.

        • She had been knitting for several hours when the doorbell rang.
        • The man had been working in a hospital before the war began.

Using the past tenses for OET letters

If you are remotely familiar with the OET writing sub-test, then you
should be aware that it will certainly involve situations that occurred in
the past. In other words, there is plenty of scope for using your past
tenses. This is one reason why it is very important to be con dent in
how and when to use them. Remember that having a good grasp of
grammar (https://edubenchmark.com/blog/oet-grammar/) is essential for
this writing sub-test (https://edubenchmark.com/oet-writing-correction),
and knowing how to use each of the English tenses will set you on a
good course towards OET success (https://edubenchmark.com/blog/oet/).

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6/25/2020 Past Tense Tips in an OET Letter

(https://edubenchmark.com/oet-writing-correction)
In the OET writing exam (https://edubenchmark.com/blog/oet-writing/), you
will be presented with notes on a patient, and you will have to write a
letter based upon the instructions that follow it. In the nursing exam, for
example, you might have to write a discharge letter. The notes would
have information about the patient’s history and medical background.
Obviously, all of these things happened in the past and so you would
need to employ your knowledge of the past tenses in order to pass this
information along correctly.

The patient’s medical history might, for example, say:

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6/25/2020 Past Tense Tips in an OET Letter

• Admitted with broken arm – x-rayed, bone set

In your discharge letter, you might then turn this into the following
sentences.
• Mr. Cramb was admitted to the ER department on July 17th with a
broken arm. An X-ray was performed on the limb, which con rmed the
fracture. After undergoing an operation, the bone was set and his arm
was secured in a cast.

Here is another possible OET writing passage:

• After a week in the hospital, Mrs. Carmichael was feeling much better.
She has been observed carefully during her stay, and the doctor has
decided she is well enough to be discharged.

You can see that in the rst short passage, the past perfect and past
simple have both been used. These are the most commonly used of all
the past tenses, but you may well be able to use all four of them,
depending on the circumstances of the task. In the second passage, the
less common past perfect continuous was used, as well as the past
continuous. These have helped to located certain events accurately in
time, which lends a greater degree of complexity to the narrative and will
help the reader to better understand the details conveyed in the patient
history information.

When writing your own OET letter (https://edubenchmark.com/oet-writing-

correction), make sure that you read the case notes very carefully, and
use the tenses that are required. This will include a mixture of past,

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6/25/2020 Past Tense Tips in an OET Letter

present, and future tenses, as well as active and passive voices. You
should prepare for the exam by ensuring that you are completely familiar
with all of them.

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One thought on “OET Writing Tips: Using Past

Tenses”

Meenu Paul says:

August 22, 2019 at 6:01 pm (https://edubenchmark.com/blog/oet-writing-tips-using-past-
tenses/#comment-1332)
Thanks a lot for the grammar lesson.it was very helpful to me.
Reply

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