Tenses are very important. If you do not understand them properly, you will not be able to speak or write good English. Unfortunately, learning the correct use of tenses in a foreign language is not easy. Test your understanding of tenses with this grammar exercise.

Complete the following sentences using appropriate verb forms.

…………………… you like to read books? Perhaps you do. In that case, you are lucky to …………………….. born in the twentieth century, and not in the fourteenth. For, if …………………….. lived six hundred years ago, you would have found very few books to read. In those days, books …………………….. so costly that only the richest people could buy them. This was because all books ……………………. to be written by hand at that time. People ………………….. not learnt the art of printing.

As a matter of fact, the Chinese ………………….. printing more than fifteen hundred years ago but printing was not known outside China. The Chinese also ……………………. paper at about the same time or a little earlier.

Solution

Do you like to read books? Perhaps you do. In that case, you are lucky to have been born in the twentieth century, and not in the fourteenth. For, if you had lived six hundred years ago, you would have found very few books to read. In those days, books were so costly that only the richest people could buy them. This was because all books had to be written by hand at that time. People had not learnt the art of printing.

As a matter of fact, the Chinese invented / had invented printing more than fifteen hundred years ago but printing was not known outside China. The Chinese also invented paper at about the same time or a little earlier.