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Review of Tenses II
Review of Tenses II
PAST
Past Simple; Past Continuous
used often with dates, times or places, for finished events, whether they are long, short, or repeated
The Mughal Empire controlled a large part of the India for more than 300 years.
During the summer of 2010, Theatrespace put on a new show every week for twelve weeks.
if events overlap or 'interrupt' one another, the past continuous is used for the longer 'background‘ event
Brooks Brothers of New York were performing reasonably well when the
takeover bid came from Marks and Spencers.
state verbs, however, are not normally used in the continuous form
used to; would + infinitive
used to talk about a past event which happened before another past event
Trade union representatives returned (past) to the talks on Friday 17 May, but by this time the
management team had already withdrawn (earlier past) their offer.
commonly used after past simple forms of verbs connected with speaking or thinking such as admit, agree,
believe, claim, confirm, deny, know, realize
A number of MPs claimed that Tony Blair had misled parliament during the debates over the
Iraq war.
Most observers agreed that the merger had taken place too quickly.
References
Paterson, K. & Wedge, R. (2013) Oxford Grammar for EAP. English Grammar and Practice for Academic
Purposes. Oxford: OUP, pp. 8 – 10.