Preterite vs Imperfect Quiz (Advanced)

Explanation: Although they may repeat over time, birthdays, graduations, weddings, holidays, and celebrations are events that take place on specific dates. Because their beginning and ending is clear, you need to use the preterite tense.

Explanation: Cada año (every year) is a common time marker that we use to talk about habits and routines in the past. As a result, it’s followed by the imperfect tense. In this case, the sentence conveys that Colleen and Samantha used to go each year.

Explanation: When telling the time in the past, you’re providing background information. As a result, you must use the imperfect tense. Remember that ‘ser’ is conjugated in the third person singular if the hour is 1:00 am/pm.

Explanation: ‘Ya’ means ‘already’ in Spanish and, as a time marker, it’s used to talk about finished actions. In this case, we’re asking Julio if he already did his homework.

El jueves pasado expresses that the action only took place at that moment. In this case, that action was Kelly bringing her baby. Since there’s a clear beginning and ending, the preterite is the tense you should use. In this tense, ‘traer’ is an irregular verb.

Explanation: In this sentence, we’re describing how the weather was at a specific moment ion time (last year). As a result, we use the preterite tense. Keep in mind that hacer is an irregular verb.

Explanation: When describing how the weather was over a long and non-specific period of time, you use the imperfect tense. Cuando éramos niños is not a specific time marker, which indicates that we’re portraying how things were during that time.

Explanation: The time marker in this sentence conveys that the action was completed on that date. In other words, it expresses that Tony went to the movies on that specific day. Therefore, ‘ir’ should be conjugated in the preterite tense.

Explanation: The imperfect tense allows you to describe how things or people used to be in the past. This includes explaining where things were located. Notice that this sentence doesn’t have a time marker because we don’t know when the movie theater changed locations.

Explanation: One of the most common uses of the imperfect tense is to say someone’s age. This type of information provides background context about the past. For this reason, in this example, tenía is the correct answer.

Explanation: The preterite tense in Spanish refers to actions that occurred over a specific amount of time. ¿Cuánto tiempo…? is a question that looks for a specific answer, as a result, in this example we use the preterite to express the amount of time those people lived in Madrid.

Explanation: Past actions that have a clear beginning must use the preterite tense. Since it’s clear when Martha and Janeatte started working, the verb should be conjugated to the preterite.

Explanation: Because feelings don’t have a clear beginning or ending, we use the imperfect tense to talk about them. On the other hand, decir must be conjugated in preterite because the action is finished. I wouldn’t know that Lee was feeling bad unless he told me that information.

Explanation: This example describes how Alice and Peter used to be when they were children. This is a long period of time with no specific ending or beginning. As a result, the verb must be conjugated in the imperfect tense.