Day 3 Activity: Past Perfect with Before and After
IELTS with Mujahid | Beginner level | Works on phone, tablet and laptop
Why this matters. The past perfect is the tense for an action that happened before another action in the past. When you tell a story, it lets you go one step further back in time, as in “When I arrived, the film had started”. The film started first, and I arrived second, so the earlier action takes the past perfect. In the last lessons you studied the past simple, the past continuous and the present perfect, and you already know past participles like gone, seen and done. The past perfect uses the same participles, but with had instead of have or has. You also studied subordinating conjunctions, and before, after and by the time are perfect partners for this tense. In Speaking Part 2, this tense helps you explain what had happened before a memorable event, and examiners notice this accuracy. Good news: had stays the same for every subject, so there is no he, she or it problem here. Practise the timeline idea below, and you will always know which action goes first.
Self-learning step: Open Google and search “past perfect tense examples with before and after”. Read one page for five minutes, then come back and try the activities.
| Tense | Form | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Past perfect | had + verb 3 (all subjects) | The earlier past action | The film had started. |
| Past simple | verb 2 | The later or main past action | I arrived. |
After + earlier action.
After I had finished my homework, I watched TV.
Earlier action + before + later action.
I had finished my homework before I watched TV.
By the time we arrived, the match had started.
They had already left. I had never seen snow before.
| Form | Example |
|---|---|
| Positive | She had left. (She’d left.) |
| Negative | She had not left. (She hadn’t left.) |
| Question | Had she left? |
Activity 1: What happened first?
Read the sentence and tap the action that happened first.
Activity 2: Had + the correct participle
Choose the correct verb form after had.
Activity 3: Before, after or by the time?
Choose the word that matches the order of the actions.
Activity 4: Past perfect or past simple?
Decide which action happened earlier, and which is the main event.
Activity 5: Spot the correct sentence
Two sentences, one is correct. These are real learner mistakes.
Activity 6: Earlier action detective
Tap the word had only where it forms the past perfect. Careful, some had words are traps. Then press Check.
Activity 7: Past perfect in Speaking Part 2
Choose the best answer for IELTS style storytelling.
Activity 8: Write it yourself
Use the lines below. Write in your own words, then tick the checklist.
Excellent work. You can now tell what happened first, and what happened next. Keep practicing at www.goatguruenglish.com
IELTS with Mujahid | www.goatguruenglish.com