3. Paco didn't expect Sonia's phone call
Reading activity
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| By F. Jepsen. Creative Commons |
Before traveling to Brighton, Paco thought of the Lanes as the area of narrow streets full of shops and
restaurants in the heart of the town. Well, this is true, but it is also the oldest
part of town, dating back centuries to the time when the village of
Brighthelmstone consisted of a maze of streets bounded by North Street, South
Street, East Street and West Street.
When Paco was visiting this area, he was gradually getting amazed with some notices he could read on the walls of some old houses: the market, the monastic farm,
the poorhouse, the fishermen's cottages, ...
While Paco was walking along The Lanes he was thinking about going to one of the multiple live musical events that took place in town.
So he stopped for a while, chose one of the pubs and sat down to enjoy a live concert with a drink.
Try to identify a sentence in the text to express that the actions in the past happened one after another and, secondly, find a sentence in past progressive expressing that the actions in the past happened at the same time.
Solved exercise
1. 1. Paco (walk) __________ down the street when he (find) __________ a wallet full
of money.
2. The doctor (say) __________ that Antonio (be) __________ too sick to go to work and that he (need) __________ to stay at home for a couple of days.
3. A: I (call) __________ you last night after dinner, but you (be, not) __________ there. Where were you?
B: I (work) __________ out at the fitness center.
4. I (watch) __________ a mystery movie on TV when the electricity (go out) __________. Now I am never going to find out how the movie ends.
5. The Titanic (cross) __________ the Atlantic when it (strike) __________ an iceberg.
2. The doctor (say) __________ that Antonio (be) __________ too sick to go to work and that he (need) __________ to stay at home for a couple of days.
3. A: I (call) __________ you last night after dinner, but you (be, not) __________ there. Where were you?
B: I (work) __________ out at the fitness center.
4. I (watch) __________ a mystery movie on TV when the electricity (go out) __________. Now I am never going to find out how the movie ends.
5. The Titanic (cross) __________ the Atlantic when it (strike) __________ an iceberg.
Using the words in parentheses, complete the text below with the appropriate
tenses:
Simple Past or Past Continuous.
Self-assessment: Cloze exercise
Read the paragraph below and complete it with the verbs in brackets either in Past Simple or Past Progressive (Continuous) when needed.
Last night, while I was doing my homework, Sonia (call)
. She said she (call)
me on her cell phone from her biology classroom. I asked her if she (wait)
for the lesson to start, but she said that the professor
was at the front of the hall lecturing while she (talk)
to me. I couldn't believe she (make)
a phone call during the lecture. I asked her what
was going on.
She said her biology professor was so boring that several
of the students (sleep, actually)
in
class. Some of the students (talk)
about their
plans for the weekend and the student next to her (draw)
a picture of a horse. When Sonia (tell)
me she was not satisfied with the class, I (mention)
that my biology professor was quite good and I (suggest)
her to switch to my class.
While we
were talking, I (hear)
her professor yell, "Miss, are you making a
phone call?" Suddenly, the line went dead. I (hang)
up the phone and went to the kitchen to make
dinner. As I (cut)
vegetables for a salad,
the phone rang once again. It (be)
Sonia, but this time she wasn't sitting in class.
AV - Reflexión
There are two main past tenses used to make general statements about the past: The Past Simple and the Past Continuous. The two tenses are quite different.
Further knowledge
A very good explanation to distinguish Simple Past and Past Continuous.
Past simple versus past continuous. An easy explanation.