Activity 1: Patty’s letter
Patty took your English Writing 101 course last semester. She wrote a letter to her best friend from high school.
Select the correct form for the main verb in the simple past tense in the paragraph below.
Hint: Remember to use the root form with the auxiliary do!
Activity 2: How I became a salesman
John also took your writing class with Patty. This is one of his essays.
Use the following verbs to fill in the blanks in this story. Some verbs are used more than once. Be careful with irregular verbs!
 | be | get | go | explain |
have | help | knock | read | |
learn | make | stay | take | |
take | tell | try | become |
I a salesman last year.
First, I to a week-long training course in St. Louis. There five participants and the training leader. His name Bob. We at a hotel and the training place in a conference room.
The first two days, Bob how our product worked. We were selling a machine that makes pasta. Bob us that it was important for us to understand how to make different kinds of pasta. The class very interesting.
The next two days, we about sales. We a book about how to be friendly, topics to avoid talking about, and how to push a client to buy. We a lot of notes and practiced the techniques together.
The last day, Friday, we into a residential area of St. Louis and on doors. We to sell the pasta machine to strangers. None of us a sale, but we some experience from the exercise. That evening, we a final dinner together and the next morning we all home.
The entire experience to make me the salesman I am today!
Activity 3: Mark’s beautiful garden
Mike wrote this essay about his vegetable garden.
Can you find the errors he made with the past simple? Can you correct his errors in the margin?
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