DRILL EXERCISES FOR VERB TO BE

Yep!That was what I did to my students. Since many of them are very careless while using the BE verbs in their essays or sentence structure, thus i make some drill exercises for them focusing on certain area of the tenses. For example:

THE PRESENT TENSE:
1. Ali _______ (is/are) a good boy.

2. They _________ (is/are) looking for the lost purse.

3. It ____________ (is/are) a good story.


THE PAST TENSE
1. Last Monday _________ (was/were) a good vacation.

2. It ___________ (was/were) looking at me yesterday.

3. They ___________ (was/were) absent from class last week.


When they have improved their skills in determining the singular and plural form of both present and past tense I also revised my exercise.

Exercise: Determine the verb to be for the following sentences either in present tense or past tense.

1. I __________ looking at the window when she walked into the class.

2. She ______ a very polite lady.

3. They ___________ quarreling when mother entered the room.

4. Abu and Ahmad _______ talking to each other when Lydia calls.

5. He ___________ sleeping on the couch last night.

6. I ____________ a lecturer in a college.


As you can see from the above exercise, students need to recognize the tenses used in the sentences before they choose the singular or plural be verbs.

The result of this drill exercise is quite encouraging when almost all of my students can answer the questions with a 100% correct.