IELTS with Fiona

IELTS Made Easier

Library Members
Log in

You are here: Home / IELTS Grammar: a complete guide for IELTS writing and speaking / Past Simple: Complete Guide for IELTS

Past Simple: Complete Guide for IELTS

The Past Simple is used to talk about:

  • Completed actions in the past
  • Habits or repeated actions in the past
  • Past states or conditions
  • Imaginary (hypothetical) situations

Example

Regular verbs

👍 I/you/we/they visited London.

👎 I/you/we/they did not visit London.

❓Did you/they/we/I visit London?

Irregular verbs

👍 I/you/we/they went to London.

👎 I/you/we/they did not go to London.

❓Did you/they/we/I go to London?

Form

👍 Positive: Subject + past form of verb (regular verbs: add -ed; irregular verbs have unique forms – see below)

👎 Negative: Subject + did not (didn’t) + base verb

❓Question: Did + subject + base verb?

Key points to remember

Regular and Irregular verbs:

  • Regular verbs: add -ed to the base verb (e.g. played, worked)
  • Irregular verbs: unique forms (e.g. go → went, see → saw, buy → bought)

Time expressions: Use the Past Simple with specific past time markers (See full list below).

  • Example: I visited Paris last summer.

Spelling rules for regular verbs:

  • For verbs ending in -e, just add -d (like → liked)
  • For verbs ending in consonant + y, change y to i and add -ed (study → studied)
  • For some short verbs ending in consonant-vowel-consonant, double the final consonant (stop → stopped)

‘2nd form’

Some people call the Past Simple the ‘2nd form’. The 3rd form is the Past Participle (mostly used with Perfect Tenses and Passive Tenses).

This list contains both the 2nd and 3rd forms:

IELTS Past Simple Irregular verbs and past participles (free PDF)

Past Simple in IELTS

1. Speaking Part 1: Describing past experiences or completed actions.

  • Question: “What did you do on your last birthday?”
  • Answer: “I celebrated with my family and went to a nice restaurant.”

2. Speaking Part 2: Narrating past events in the long turn

  • Question: “Talk about a time when you had to take something back to a shop”
  • Answer: “A few days ago, my [old phone case] fell apart, so I went to [a local shop] and bought [a new one.] As soon as I got home/ left the shop, and [put it on my phone] it broke, so…

3. General Training Letters: Complaints

  • I was very disappointed with the service I received when I visited the museum last week.

4. Academic Writing Task 1:

Describing past trends in graphs and charts.

  • “Sales peaked in 2010 but fell sharply over the next five years.”

See also verbs of change for Task 1.

5. Writing Task 2: Providing examples or discussing historical events.

  • “In the past, people relied more on traditional methods of communication, but this changed with the advent of the internet.”

'Wh' and 'How' questions

You often need to ask questions in General Training letters.

Use the ‘did’ question structure and put the ‘wh’ and ‘how’ questions at the start.

  • When did you start your new job?
  • Who did you meet at the party?
  • Why didn’t you call me?
  • How did they find the hotel?
  • Where did you stay?
  • What time did you arrive home?

'Subject' questions

What do you notice about these Past Simple questions?

  • “Who discovered penicillin?”
  • “Who invented the lightbulb?”
  • “Who met you at the airport?”
  • “How many people came to the conference?”

There’s no ‘did‘ in these questions!

Why not?

These are called SUBJECT questions because we don’t know the SUBJECT (the person who did the action).

In most ‘did’ questions, we already know the subject (e.g. ‘you‘ in ‘Where did you stay?’) but we don’t know the object (‘I stayed in a hotel).

When you don’t know the subject, you don’t need “did”.

These questions are often “Who?’ or ‘How many people?’ questions.

Compare

  1. Who invented the lightbulb? [Subject question]
  2. What did Thomas Edison invent? [Object question]

Common Mistakes:

❌ “Who did invent the lightbulb?”

✅ “Who invented the lightbulb?”

Time expressions with Past Simple

1. Specific points in time [keyword: ‘last‘]

  • Days and weeks – Yesterday, The day before yesterday, Last Monday, Last week
  • Months and years – Last month, Last year, in 2010

2. Periods before now [keyword: ‘ago‘]

  • Short periods – Two days ago, a week ago, a month ago, a year ago
  • Longer or unspecified periods – Long ago, a long time ago, ages ago

3. General past references

  • In the past, previously, formerly, back then

4. Relative time references

  • Earlier this week/month/year
  • The other day
  • On that occasion

5. Childhood and youth references

  • When I was young
  • When I was a child
  • In my childhood
  • During my school days

6. Historical references

  • In those days
  • During the war (or any specific past event)
  • In ancient times

7. Time ranges

  • Between 2005 and 2010
  • From 2000 to 2005
  • Until last week

8. Before or after a specific event

  • Before I started my job
  • After I graduated
  • Prior to moving to a new city

9. Parts of a time period

  • At the beginning of the year
  • In the middle of last month
  • Towards the end of 2019

10. Idiomatic expressions

  • Back in the day
  • In the good old days

Past Simple in Second Conditional

Conditional, or ‘imaginary’ situations use the Past Tense to convey the idea of being ‘far from the truth’.

The tenses ‘move back’ from Present to Past in imaginary situations:

  • Present truth: “I don’t have a car”
  • Imaginary situation: “I wish I had a car.”
  • Present truth: “I don’t have a car, so I can’t help you.”
  • Imaginary situation: “If I had a car, I could help you.”

Common mistake:

❌ If I have a car help I can help you.

✅ If I had a car, I could help you.

Past Simple for storytelling

In the Speaking Test Part 2, it helps to tell a story, especially if the question is very simple.

For example:

Describe a cafe or restaurant that you go to regularly.

The danger with this type of question is that you will only use the PRESENT Simple (“I go there every week with my friends. I always have a coffee. It’s not very expensive”).

So try to build a story into your 2-minute response.

For example: 

  • The first time I went there was….
  • I remember going there for the first time when I was…
  • A funny thing happened the last time I went there…
  • Unfortunately, the food/service wasn’t great when I last went there….

See the full lesson here (Bronze).

Past simple with 'be'

The Past Simple rules are different for the verb ‘to be’.

Use ‘be’:

  • with nouns: I was a student.
  • with adjectives: I was tired.
  • with age: I was 35 (years old).
  • with locations: I was at home.

I, he, she, it

  • was OK.
  • was not OK.

Was it OK?

You/they/we

  • were OK.
  • were not OK.

Were you/we/they OK?

Remember to use contractions with the negative forms in spoken and informal written English.

Full version

It was not OK.

They were not ok.

Contracted version

It wasn’t ok.

They weren’t ok.

Common mistakes

1. Irregular verbs

These are often confused, especially the spelling.

Commonly confused: feel – felt, fall – fell

  • Sales fell down by 60%
  • Sales fell by 60%
  • Sales grew up dramatically.
  • Sales grew dramatically.

Practice these with my PDF (below) and free flashcards.

2. Using the Past Perfect instead of Past Simple

The Past Perfect is only used in very specific circumstances.

Ticket prices had seen saw a significant rise in 2019, whereas transport costs had went up gradually.

3. Using Present Perfect instead of Past Simple

  • When have you arrived?.
  • When did you arrive?

See futher explanations below.

4. Spelling changes

  • ending in ‘y‘: I cry – He cried.
  • double letters: to stop – I stopped

5. Pronunciation

See below.

Past Simple Pronunciation: 'ed'

There are 3 ways to pronounce the regular ‘ed’ ending.

It depends on which sound comes BEFORE the ‘ed’.

With words ending in the ‘t’ or ‘d’, you need to add an extra vowel:

  • landed = land-id /ˈlændɪd/
  • wanted = want-id /ˈwɒntɪd/

Common mistake

Students often add an extra vowel to words ending in ‘tch’, for example ‘watched’ = watch-id*. (It should be ‘watcht’ /wɒtʃt/).

/t/

after unvoiced sounds

/k/ /s/  /x/ /p/ /f/ /sh/ /ch/ /th/

  • looked
  • missed
  • fixed
  • stopped
  • laughed
  • washed
  • watched

/d/

after voiced sounds

/g/ /z/ /b/ /v/ /ʒ/ /dʒ/ /ð/ /w/ /m/ /r/ /n/ /l/ /y/

  • hugged
  • organized
  • robbed
  • lived
  • closed
  • encouraged
  • bathed

/id/

after ‘t’ or ‘d’

Add an extra syllable after ‘t’ or d’.

  • wanted
  • landed
IELTS Grammar Past Simple pronunciation
Verbs included on the Academic Word List

Irregular Verbs

Unfortunately, you just have to learn these.

In the document below, I have grouped the irregular verbs in their Simple Past form with the Past Participle. 

  • Print off this list
  • Check the meaning
  • Check the pronunciation.
  • Use the words in meaningful sentences
  • Review the list regularly until all the forms become automatic.

IELTS Past Simple Irregular verbs and past participles (free PDF)

Review Irregular Verbs on Quizlet (free Flashcards)

Past Simple or Present Perfect?

If the sentence mentions a specific time in the past, use Past Simple.

If it talks about a period of time up to now, use Present Perfect.

Past Simple

Use Past Simple for completed actions at a specific time in the past.

Look for time markers like “in 2015,” “last year,” “yesterday,” “last week,” or “ago.”

Present Perfect

Use Present Perfect for actions that started in the past and continue to the present, or for past actions with present relevance.

Look for phrases like:

  • “since”
  • “in recent years”
  • “over the past decade”
  •  “ever,” “never,” “yet,” “already”
  • “since,” and “for” when talking about duration

The Present Perfect is often used in the General Statement of a Task 2 essay.

Example:

“In recent years, renewable energy sources have become increasingly popular due to environmental concerns.”

Practice

The Past Simple is often confused with the Present Perfect.

Test your understanding with this quick quiz.

Learn more in the Resource Library

Stuck at Band 6.5?

Get access to 200+ premium IELTS lessons, model answers and study resources.

IELTS resource library

Learn more IELTS grammar tips

FREE

Check out my Complete Guide to IELTS Grammar

📚 Resource Libary

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.