Perfect present tense | Starter Quiz | Oak National Academy

A verb is a ...

• doing, being or having word.

• a naming word for a person, place or thing.

• a describing word.

Answer explanation

A verb is a doing, being or having word like 'was', 'has' or 'run'.

Which of the following are verbs?

• ate

• is

• beautiful

• grape

• has

Answer explanation

'Ate' is a doing verb, 'is' is a being verb and 'has' is a having verb.

Which of these sentences is written in the first person?

• I slept well last night.

• You look very smart today.

• He ripped the birthday card.

• They smell nice!

• We got soaking wet in the park.

Answer explanation

'I' and 'we' are both in the first person. We use the first person when we are talking from our own perspective.

Which of the following sentences is written in the simple future tense?

• We will go to the post office tomorrow.

• The flowers have died because no one fed them any water.

• The lion yawns sleepily.

Answer explanation

'We will go to the post office tomorrow.' is written in the simple future tense. The auxiliary verb 'will' helps the main verb 'go'.

Which of the following would be found in a sentence in a progressive tense?

• an auxiliary verb from ‘to be’

• a verb ending with -ed

• a verb ending with an -ing suffix

• an auxiliary verb from ‘to have’

Answer explanation

To form the progressive tense, we use an auxiliary verb from the infinitive ‘to be’ and we add the suffix -ing to the main verb.

Match the sentence to the tense.

• simple present

• I was helping my sister with her homework.

• progressive future

• I will be fasting next week.

• progressive past

• I eat breakfast at school most mornings.

Answer explanation

'I eat breakfast at school most mornings.' is in the simple present tense. There is no auxiliary verb. 'I was helping my sister with her homework' is in the progressive past tense. It uses the auxiliary verb 'was' and the main verb ends in -ing.