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1. Simple Past
A sentence in the simple-past form describes an event that occurred in the past: They agreed with us. They did not agree with us. Did they agree with us? Notice that in the first sentence, the verb form of drive is in past tense, but in the other examples, did does the heavy lifting of indicating the tense, so drive remains in present tense. In almost all other variations of past tense, the form of the verb to be and the participle retain the same form regardless of the type of sentence.
3. Past Perfect
This tense form applies to events that began at a time preceding a period in the past: They had agreed with us. They had not agreed with us. Had they agreed with us?
5. Past Habitual
A sentence written in past-habitual tense describes an occurrence that once occurred continuously or repeatedly: They used to agree with us.
GRAMMAR CAPSULE
They used to not agree with us. (This formal usage is awkward and seldom used; we are more likely to write, They used to disagree with us. An informal version of the sentence, more likely to be used if no direct antonym like disagree is available for a given sentence, is They didnt use to agree with us.) Used they to agree with us? (This formal usage is rare. The informal form, much more common, is, Did they use to agree with us?)
7. Past Intensive
A sentence in the past-intensive form describes something confirmed as having occurred: They did agree with us. They did not agree with us. Did they agree with us?
9. Past-Perfect Subjunctive
Sentences with this subjunctive form, by contrast, do have a past-tense sense: Had they agreed with us, they would have told us by now. Had they not agreed with us, they would have told us by now. Had they agreed with us, would they have told us by now?