simple past

If you have already understood about four tenses above, it will be easier to understand this tense. See simple present tense carefully. the different between simple present tense and simple past tense is only at the verb. simple present tense uses verb1 or present form verb and simple past tense uses verb2 or past form verb. you can see the different between verb1 and verb2 on the dictionary.
Here I give the example of the verb, verb 2, verb3 and verb ing
V1 V2 V3 Ving
use used used using
pay paid paid paying
go went gone going etc.

and to understand well about this tense see the example above:
s v o/c
+ he goes to school (simple present)
+ he went to school (simple past)
- he did not go to school (simple past)
? did he go to school? (simple past)