The Princess and the Pea by Hans Christian Andersen

V.I.P

Once upon a time, a prince _________________ (want) to marry a princess but only if she ___________ (be) a real princess.
He ______________________ (travel) all over the world to find a princess, but _____________________ (not find) her.
He __________________ (talk) to a lot of princesses, but he ___________________________ (not know) if they _________________ (be) real princesses.
They always ______________ (have) imperfections. So he _____________________ (return) home and he _____________(be) sad because he _______________ (want) a real princess very much.

One evening a terrible storm _________________ (come on) and it _____________ (rain) down in torrents. Suddenly someone ________________ (knock) at the city gate, and the old king ___________ (open) it.
It ______________ (be) a princess standing in front of the gate. But, good gracious! She _______________ (not be) very nice to look at because she ___________ (have) water running down from her hair and clothes; her shoes ________________ (be) full of water too. And yet she said that she ______________ (be) a real princess.

The old queen____________________ (want) to check if she __________ (be) a real princess. But she said nothing. The queen ______________________ (enter) the bed-room, and she __________________ (deposit) a pea under the matress of the bed; then she _____________ (ad) twenty mattresses on the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses.

The princess __________________ (not know) it __________________ (be) her bed for the night. In the morning the queen ____________________ (ask) her : “How _______________ you ______________ (sleep) ?”
"Oh, very badly!" said she. "I __________________ (not close) my eyes all night. Heaven only knows what ______________ (be) in the bed, but it ____________ (be) hard, I am black and blue all over my body. It's horrible!"

Now they knew that she ________________ (be) a real princess because she had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds.
Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that.

So the prince __________________ (marry) her, because he __________ (be) sure that he _________________ (have) a real princess; and the pea was put in the museum, where you can still see it today, if it ___________________ (not be) stolen.

There, that is a true story.

REAMARK: The work was found on the net.

Active Member

I used the kind of this exercise with my learners when dealing with the prophet "Joseph" / "Youssouf" story. Thank you, madam for this help

Active Member

I think it is really an interesting activity that can be used as remediation of the simple past tense and also as relaxing task away from the daily stress of the use of the school textbook (for the pupils). Thank you Nacéra.