1) The simple past tense is used to talk about past events or states that have finished. It is formed by adding "-ed" to most regular verbs. 2) Verbs ending in a consonant plus "y" change the "y" to "i" and add "ed", except for the verb "play". Verbs ending in a vowel plus consonant usually double the final consonant and add "ed". 3) The simple past tense uses the past form of the verb along with the subject to talk about completed actions or states in the past. It can be used with time expressions like "yesterday" or "last week".