Passed or Past?

Another consequence of Flo’s review is that I’ve sorted out the difference in usage between passed and past.

As she explains:

USAGE NOTE The past tense and past participle of pass is passed: They passed (or have passed) our home. Time had passed slowly.
Past is the corresponding adjective (in centuries past), adverb (drove past), preposition (past midnight), and noun (lived in the past).

http://www.answers.com/topic/pass?cat=biz-fin

A pedestrian walked past the window (adverb)
A pedestrian passed by the window (past participle)

This sounds horribly complex but it’s not too bad. Basically everything is past except when you say “Yesterday I passed the exam” or “I have passed an exam this week.”

Well thank goodness that’s all sorted out!