Past perfect continuous | Free practice exercises

Present perfect and past perfect

Past perfect continuous

affirmative, negative, yes/no, wh- questionsb2

Past perfect continuousThey had been walking for hours when they saw the house in the distance.She was worried because he hadn’t been sleeping well recently.We'd been dancing for hours and we were tired.He had a headache because he'd been studying since five o’clock in the morning.We form the past perfect continuous with:had + been + -ing.Positive and negativeSubjecthadbeen-ing+Ithadbeenraininghard.-Ihadn'tbeenfeelingwell for hours.QuestionsQuestion wordhad/hadn'tsubjectbeeningHow longhadyoubeenwaitingbefore he arrived?Whyhadn'tshebeenfeelingwell?We use the past perfect continuous to talk about an action or a situation that continued for a period of time before another action or situation in the past. This action may or may not have continued up to the moment we are talking about it.I’d been living in Italy for three years when we first met. (I was still living in Italy when we met.)When I woke up, I saw that it had been raining. (It had stopped raining by the time I woke up.)

Complete the conversations with the past perfect continuous form of the verbs in brackets. Use British English spelling and short forms (I've), not full forms (I have).

Question: 1 /

You scored 0 out of

A Sorry I was so late last night.
B Oh, don't worry about it. We

(not / wait) very long – only about ten minutes.

A I hear you had your hair cut short yesterday.
B Yes! I

(think) about it for some time. I love it!

A You and Anna looked very happy when I saw you with Tom last night.
B Oh, yes, he

(tell) us some very funny stories!