I. Change as the past simple sentences into ‘used to’ sentences in this text.

Did you know…?

Two or three centuries ago people had () much shorter lives - the average age was () forty-five. But this was () mainly because a lot of babies died (). If people survived to be adults, they could often live to be seventy or even eighty, like today.

Having children was () much more dangerous than it is today.
Families often had () ten or twelve children, but many babies died, and unfortunately many women died in childbirth.

In those days, they didn’t know how to cure all the diseases that we can cure now. Many people didn’t have enough to eat, or didn’t have enough money to pay for doctors. Even if you had a doctor, some of their methods were () very strange. They believed () that cutting open their patients and ‘bleeding’ cured almost any problem - unfortunately, it often killed them instead!

And people knew less about hygiene in the past. Even rich people didn’t wash () very often, and most poor people didn’t have () toilets or clean water. It was difficult to keep food fresh too, so they cooked () with a lot of strong spices to cover the taste of the bad meat.

II. As read, two or three years ago most people didn’t live as long as we do now. Think of three different reasons why. Use ‘used to’

III. Complete these sentences about yourself

When I was a small child…

1. I used to think that ...
2. I used to be frightened of ...
3. I used/didn’t use to love ...
4. My favourite toy used to be ...
5. I used to spent hours ...
6. I never used to ...