Choose the correct phrasal verb to complete Sarah's conversation with her study partner.
"This math problem is so difficult! I think I'm going to ___ and try a different one."
The correct answer is give up.
To "give up" means to stop trying or quit doing something because it's too difficult. "Give in" means to surrender to pressure, "give out" means to distribute or stop working, and "give away" means to give something for free.
Phrasal verb
A phrasal verb is a verb combined with one or two short words — a particle, a preposition, or both — that together carry a meaning you can't predict from the parts: give up (quit), run into (meet by chance), put up with (tolerate). The combination behaves as a single unit even though it looks like several words.
English has thousands of these, and they're everywhere in everyday speech. Learning them as whole units — take off, look after, come across — beats trying to decode them word-by-word, and it's the fastest way to make your English sound less stiff and more natural.
Verb
A verb is a word that expresses an action, a state, or an occurrence — the engine of every English sentence. Most verbs have five forms: base (go), -s form (goes), past tense (went), past participle (gone), and -ing form (going). The verb be is the major exception with eight forms; modal verbs like can and must have fewer.
Verbs carry tense (when), aspect (how it unfolds), mood (the speaker's attitude), and voice (active vs passive). Mastering them is foundational — virtually every other grammar topic depends on getting verbs right.
Vocabulary
The Vocabulary tag groups practice that focuses on words rather than grammar rules — common words, collocations, phrasal verbs, idioms, and the lexical patterns native speakers reach for instinctively. It cuts across grammar topics, offering targeted vocabulary work at every CEFR level from A1 to C2.
Grammar gets you the structure of English; vocabulary gets you the colour. Plenty of B1 grammar with A2 vocabulary still sounds simple; the right word at the right register is what shifts your English from "correct" to "natural".
A2 | Elementary | Pre-intermediate
A2 is the elementary level in the CEFR framework, sitting between A1 and B1. At A2 you can handle routine exchanges — ordering food, asking directions, making small talk — and describe your immediate environment in simple sentences.
Grammatically, A2 introduces past simple and past continuous, present perfect for experiences, basic modal verbs, and the first conditional. You're also picking up collocations and learning which verbs take gerunds vs. infinitives. Knowing your level here is the difference between confident progress and frustration: A2 material consolidates the basics; B1 will overwhelm you.
Difficulty: Easy
The Easy difficulty tag marks questions and challenges aimed at beginners — typically A1 or early A2 level. Expect single-rule focus, short sentences, common everyday vocabulary, and one clear correct answer. Distractors usually rule themselves out quickly.
Filter by Easy when you're rebuilding fundamentals, warming up before harder material, or testing whether you've truly internalised a basic rule before moving on. Easy doesn't mean trivial — it means the rule itself is unambiguous and the context doesn't pile on extra complications.