Present perfect simple and past simple | Free practice exercises

Present perfect and past perfect

Present perfect simple

contrast: present perfect vs past simpleb1

Present perfect simple and past simple I've travelled around the world.I travelled around Asia five years ago.He hasn't met our cousins.He didn't meet our cousins in 2014.Have you talked to my sister yet?Yes, I have. I talked to her yesterday.For more information on forms of the present perfect (simple), see Present perfect simple: positive.In British English, we use the present perfect to talk about an action or situation in the past when we don't know the exact time or it isn't important.I've invited Dave and Sue for dinner.We use the past simple to talk about a specific time in the past.I phoned my brother yesterday.We often use the present perfect to start a conversation about our experiences. If we want to ask about or give more details, we use the past simple.‘Have you ever visited your cousins in Canada?’ ‘Yes, we went there last year.’

Complete the text with the past simple or present perfect simple form of the verbs in brackets. Use full forms (I have), not short forms (I've).

Question: 1 /

You scored 0 out of

A short history of Brighton
Brighton is a city on the south coast of England. People

(live) there for hundreds of years, although it

(only / be) a city since 2000.
Brighton

(begin) as a village in the 5th century. At that time it was called Beorthelms Tun. The village

(grow) bigger, and by the 14th century it

(be) a busy market town. It

(be) called Brighton since 1660. Today Brighton is an exciting and popular city but it

(experience) problems over the years. The French

(destroy) many of its houses in the 16th century, and at the beginning of the 18th century a terrible storm

(kill) many people.
Things

(change) in the late 18th century when the Prince of Wales and his friends

(visit) Brighton. Since then, many tourists

(make) Brighton their holiday choice. There

(be) a railway station in Brighton since the middle of the 19th century, as well as a hospital, a museum and a library. The town's swimming pools and cinemas

(open) a few decades after that. In recent years, several big music festivals

(bring) a party feeling to the city.
Today the population of Brighton is 156,000. In the last few years it

(become) a very expensive place to live, but it is a still a great place to visit.