Wish & If Only: Gap Fill Advanced

This exercise builds on the basics by mixing all three wish structures in more challenging contexts. You must decide whether each sentence needs past simple (present wish), past perfect (past regret), or would (complaint about behaviour). The context clues are more subtle here: words like "yesterday" and "last week" point to past perfect, while "always" and "keeps" suggest would for annoying habits.

At this level, you also need to handle sentences where the time reference is not immediately obvious. For example, "I wish you would stop interrupting me" is about a present behaviour you want to change — not a past event. Similarly, "If only I had known about the meeting" refers to a past situation even without an explicit time word. Pay attention to the overall meaning, not just individual words. This distinction between the three structures is a common test item in Cambridge B2 First examinations and requires careful reading of each sentence.