Past Perfect: wh-questions
450 fill-in-the-gap exercises, 45 tests of ten
Question word, then had, then the subject, then the past participle.
The past participle is the third form in verb tables: written, gone, built. It never changes with the subject.
Practice this form
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Getting your first question ready.
The usual order
Four slots: question word — had — subject — past participle.
Why had the alarm gone off?
When who or what is the subject
Nothing swaps:
- Who had left the door open?
- What had gone wrong?
These are the questions of an investigation: something is already true, and you are asking what produced it.
How long had
Asks about a stretch of time that had already run by a past point:
By the time she retired, how long had she worked there?
The answer takes for: For thirty years.
Reported questions
Once the question is reported, the order goes back to normal and the tense often shifts again:
- direct: Where had he been?
- reported: She asked where he had been.
All forms
| Question word | Example | Asking about |
|---|---|---|
| What | What had happened? | the event |
| Where | Where had she gone? | the place |
| Why | Why had he left? | the reason |
| How long | How long had they waited? | the duration |
| Who | Who had taken it? | the person — see below |
Examples
Taken from the 450 sentences in this drill. The answer is highlighted.
- When had your parents bought the tickets before the concert sold out?
- When had they lost the house key before leaving for vacation?
- How had the weather been during the weekend?
- What had she eaten before she left for work?
- Why had she gone to the party before she remembered she had other plans?
- When had Amanda done her homework before she left for school?
- When had Alex and Emily heard about the concert?
- How many books had they read before starting their own library?
- When had you finished your homework before yesterday?
- Where had he left his wallet before leaving the restaurant?
- What had they seen during their vacation in Hawaii?
- What had she put in the bag before she gave it to him?
Mistakes to avoid
Wrong: Where you had been? correct: Where had you been?
Had goes before the subject.
Wrong: Who had he broken the window? correct: Who had broken the window?
When who does the action, there is no second subject.