Exercises (the past continuous tense)

Ex.1. Answer the questions using the Past Continuous Tense.

l. What were you doing at 10 o’clock Saturday morning? 2. What were you doing at 11 o’clock yesterday evening? 3. What were you reading when friend came to see you?

4. What were you listening to when I entered the room? 5. Who were you talking to when I met you in the corridor? 6. W were the students doing when the bell rang? 7. What were you doing when I called you? 8. Where were you going to when I met you yesterday?

9. What was your father looking through while you were talking on the phone? 10. Who were you waiting for while I was having a talk with the teacher? 11. What were you dreaming about at the English lesson when the teacher asked you? 12. What were you doing when it started raining? 13. What were you looking for when I opened the door? 14. What were your friends doing while you were laying the table? 15. What were you going to speak about when I interrupted you?

Ex.2. Ask questions to which the following sentences are answers.

1. At that time yesterday I was seeing off my brother. 2. We were having walk in the park 3. My son was playing tennis while I was swimming. 4. The child was skiing the whole day yesterday. 5. The children were doing the homework while I was working at my report. 6. She was cooking dinner in the kitchen. 7. This time yesterday I was returning home from Moscow. 8. This time last year I was crossing the Atlantic Ocean. 9. I was revising for my exam when you rang me up. 10. While the teacher was explaining the new rule I was talking to my neighbour.

Ex.3. Here are four short articles from a newspaper. Read them all. Look through the phrases given below. What article do they go in? Where exactly do they go? (Two phrases go with each story).

a. “I was working in the garden at the time,” she explained.

b. …because they were wearing masks

c. “I know I was driving fast,” he explained to the court.

d. “I was trying to mend my wife’s hair-drier,” he said.

e. …when he was travelling at 120 miles an hour

f. …who was coming home from school at the time

g. …while he was mending a plug

h. The earth round the bottom of the tree was moving.

Motorist Driving at 120 mph (miles per hour)

Motorist Jeremy Page had to pay a fine of $ 330 at Durham Magistrates’ Court yesterday for speeding. Police stopped him on the motorway. The speed limit on motorways is 70 miles an hour. “This was because I was late for work”. The judge said that this was no excuse.

Tree Destroys House

Yesterday afternoon a 35 - year-old housewife narrowly escaped death when a tree blew over and fell onto her house, completely destroying it. “It was quite windy. I heard a strange noise coming from our tree. Suddenly the wind blew a little stronger, and I watched it crash onto the roof.” The Bowles fam­ily are staying with friends while their house is rebuilt.

Man Gets Shock

A man received a severe electric shock at his home in Solihull, Birmingham. Mr. Ian Taylor, 42, spent the night at the Birmingham Royal Hospital and then went home. “Suddenly there was a flash and an explosion. I don’t know how it happened.”

Post Office Robbery

Yesterday afternoon thieves stole $ 500 from a post office in Preston, Lanca­shire. Police do not have a good description of the two men, but they know that they escaped in a red Ford Cortina. This information came from an 11 -year-old boy, Charlie Carrack.

Ex.4. Translate into English:

1. Я ждал подругу в перемену, но она не пришла. Оказалось (it turned out), что она в это время заканчивала писать контрольную работу по грамматике. 2. Насколько я помню, когда она была школьницей, она постоянно смеялась на уроках. 3. Вчера моя младшая сестра играла на пианино весь вечер. 4. В 9 часов утра я всё ещё спал, а мой друг сидел в это время на уроке литературы. 5. Когда я пришёл на вечеринку, Аня и Лена сидели на диване и разговаривали, Катя выбирала диск, Макс пил шампанское, Николай курил сигарету, Александр рассказывал анекдот.