PAST CONTINUOUS (QUÁ KHỨ TIẾP DIỄN)

- Used to describe:
 An action that someone was doing or an event that was happening at a
particular time IN THE PAST.
 An action IN THE PAST that get interrupted. (***)

Structure
Affirmative S + was/were + V-ing + O
Negative S + was/were + NOT + V-ing + O
Question Was/Were + S + V-ing + O?

e.g:
She was eating breakfast.
He was not paying attention to the lesson.
Were you listening to me?

(***): One of the most common uses of the past continuous tense shows a
past action that was interrupted by another past action. These are often
complex sentences with conjunctions like when, while, before, after, until, or whenever.
Put the action that was interrupted in the past continuous tense and the action that
interrupts it in the simple past.
e.g:
Mary was leaving her apartment when she heard the thunderstorm.
They were sleeping until the alarm rang.
My parents arrived while I was shopping.
Exercise:

1. When I phoned my friends, they ___________ (play) board games.

2. Yesterday at six I ____________ (prepare) dinner.
3. The kids ___________ (run) in the garden when it suddenly began to rain.
4. I _____________ (practice) the guitar when he came home.
5. We _____________ (not cycle) all morning.
6. While Alan ___________ (work) in his room, his children __________ (swim) in
the pool.
7. I tried to tell them the truth but they_____________ (not listen).
8. I ___________ (clean) the house when my dad came home.
9. When I arrived, they ____________ (paint) the walls.
10.We ____________ (study) English yesterday at 4:00 pm.

Simple past or past continuous?

1. I fell/was falling when I went/was going down the stairs.
2. He drove/was driving very fast when the police stopped/was stopping him.
3. It snowed/was snowing when we left/was leaving home.
4. I didn’t answer/wasn’t answering your call because I worked/was
working.
5. This morning I woke up/was waking up and I made/was making breakfast
for everybody.
6. When I saw/was seeing her, she wore/was wearing a really nice purple
dress.
7. Last Saturday we got up/was getting up late and we missed/was missing
the train.
8. I didn’t say/wasn’t saying hello because you walked/was walking very
fast.
9. I sang/was singing happily when a loud noise surprised/was surprising
me.
10.What did you do/were you doing when I called/was calling you last night?