Study guide: Mastering Past Tense and Progressive Forms

📋 Course Outline

1. Preterit, BE + V-ing and related grammar

📖 1. Preterit, BE + V-ing and related grammar

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Preterit: The preterit is a past tense used for completed actions or states in the past.
• BE + V-ing: BE + V-ing forms the past progressive to describe an action in progress at a past time.

📝 Essential Points

• Use the preterit form of be (was/were) with V-ing for past progressive sentences.
• Form negatives with not after be (was not/were not) and questions by inverting be and the subject.
• Recheck preterit verb forms (regular -ed and common irregular past forms) before applying BE + V-ing.

💡 Memory Hook

Was/were + V-ing = “in progress in the past”.

⚠️ Common Pitfalls & Confusions

1. Mixing present progressive (am/is/are + V-ing) with past progressive (was/were + V-ing).
2. Using the base verb instead of the preterit form when the sentence needs completed past time.
3. Forgetting irregular preterit forms and producing incorrect past forms.

✅ Exam Checklist

1. Write correct preterit affirmative, negative, and question forms.
2. Convert a past-time action into past progressive using was/were + V-ing.
3. Choose correct preterit verb forms (regular and irregular) in sentences using preterit and BE + V-ing.