Present Continuous Exercises and Examples

Present Continuous - Exercises and Quiz

These exercises focus on using Present Continuous to talk about ongoing actions.

The Present Continuous tense is used to describe:

Example: She is staying with her friend this week. (She doesn’t usually stay there.)

To form the Present Continuous, we use:

[Subject] + [am/is/are] + [verb + ing]

When adding -ing to verbs, follow these rules:

Rule	Example
Most verbs – Just add -ing	play → playing
Verbs ending in -e – Drop e and add -ing	make → making
Verbs with one vowel + one consonant – Double the consonant and add -ing	run → running
Verbs ending in -ie – Change ie to y and add -ing	lie → lying

❌ She cooking dinner.
✅ She is cooking dinner.

❌ They is playing soccer.
✅ They are playing soccer.

❌ I eat now.
✅ I am eating now.

We do not use Present Continuous with non-action verbs (also called stative verbs). These verbs describe feelings, thoughts, possession, or senses.

Some common stative verbs include:
like, love, hate, know, understand, believe, want, need, have (possession), see, hear, smell, taste.

You hear the Present Continuous tense all the time! Here are some real-life situations:

Use Present Continuous for actions happening now (I am reading) and Present Simple for habits (I read every night).

Yes! You can use it for planned future events. (We are traveling to Paris next week.)

Because “know” is a stative verb. It describes a state, not an action. Use “I know” instead.

Yes! Just add not after the helping verb: