Fill in the blanks with the correct form of the word from the options provided after each. The first one has been done for you. A farmer (0) LIVED (live) on the same farm all his life. It (1) __________ (be) a good farm. As the years (2) __________ (pass), the farmer (3) __________ (begin) to tire and he (4) __________ (long) for a change, for something better.
(3) __________ (begin)
Topic: Tenses — irregular verbs
Try it
Pick an option and check your answer. The full worked answer is below either way.
Answer
(c) began.
The simple past of BEGIN is BEGAN. The passage is in the past, so "the farmer BEGAN to tire".
Option (b) "begun" is the trap and is one of the most frequently confused irregular verbs in English. Learn the three parts together: begin — began — begun BEGAN stands alone as the simple past; BEGUN is the past participle and needs an auxiliary (has begun, had begun, was begun). Writing "he begun" is always wrong.
The same pattern governs a family of verbs worth learning as a set: drink/drank/drunk, sing/sang/sung, swim/swam/swum, ring/rang/rung.
began.