Pick the correct past simple or past participle. 10 questions per round.
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About this quiz
Irregular verbs don't follow the normal “-ed” rule, so they simply have to be memorized — and quizzing yourself with instant feedback is one of the fastest ways to do it. Each round asks 10 random questions. Wrong options include the tempting “regular” form (goed, taked…) that learners often reach for, so watch out. Start with the 50 most common verbs, then move up to the full list of 100.
Why these verbs never followed the rule
Irregular verbs are not exceptions that someone invented. They are the older system, left over from a stage of English in which the past tense was formed by changing the vowel inside the word rather than adding an ending — sing became sang, drive became drove, take became took. The -ed ending arrived later and gradually took over, and it won everywhere except in the verbs used so often that the old forms never had a chance to fade.
That explains the pattern you will notice while practising: the irregular verbs are almost all extremely common ones. Be, have, go, make, take, come, see, get. Frequency is what preserved them, and it is also why learning them is worth the effort — a small list of words that appear in almost every sentence you will ever say.
Groups that make the list shorter
No change at all: cut, put, let, set, hit, cost, shut. Same word in all three forms — the easiest group, and worth clearing first.
Vowel to -ought or -aught: buy, bring, think, teach, catch. Bought, brought, thought, taught, caught all rhyme.
i to a to u: sing, ring, drink, swim, begin. Sang and sung, drank and drunk, swam and swum.
Past and participle identical: make, have, find, sell, tell, keep, sleep. Made, had, found, sold, told, kept, slept — one form to learn instead of two.
The quiz needs no account, no code and no setup, which makes it usable as a warm-up or a five-minute filler without any preparation. Project it and work through a round as a class, or point learners at it on their own devices — the page works the same on a phone, a tablet and a classroom board, and nothing anyone types is sent anywhere.
Because there are no logins, there are also no per-student scores to collect. The practical way around that is to run a round together and have learners keep their own count, or to use it for retrieval practice rather than assessment — which is what a ten-question round with instant feedback is genuinely good at.
The wrong options are chosen deliberately. Each question includes the tempting regular form — goed, taked, thinked — because that is the mistake learners actually make, and seeing it rejected does more than seeing three random words.
100 of the most frequently used English irregular verbs, from go/went/gone to withdraw/withdrew/withdrawn. The “Essential 50” setting keeps to the verbs every beginner needs first; “All 100” adds the rest.
Why are some wrong answers like “goed” or “taked”?
Those are the “regularized” forms learners instinctively produce by adding -ed. Training yourself to reject them is exactly what makes irregular verbs stick — if the wrong option tempts you, that verb needs more practice.
What's the difference between past simple and past participle?
Past simple stands alone (“I went home”), while the past participle needs a helper verb — perfect tenses (“I have gone”) and passives (“it was written”). Some verbs share one form (buy/bought/bought), others use three (go/went/gone).
Why does English have irregular verbs at all?
They are leftovers from Old English, which marked the past tense by changing the vowel inside the verb — sing–sang–sung still follows that ancient pattern. Over the centuries most verbs switched to the -ed rule, but the most frequently spoken ones were used too often to change, which is why the irregular list is packed with everyday verbs.
How many irregular verbs are there in English?
Around 200 are in everyday use, though large dictionaries list more rare or archaic ones. The good news is that frequency is heavily skewed: a few dozen verbs like be, have, do, say, go, get and make do most of the work, so mastering this quiz's 100 covers nearly everything you'll actually meet.
What's the fastest way to memorize irregular verbs?
Group them by pattern instead of alphabetically: no-change verbs (cut–cut–cut), i–a–u families (sing–sang–sung), and -ought/-aught verbs (buy–bought, teach–taught). Then test yourself in short daily rounds rather than one long session — retrieving a form from memory strengthens it far more than rereading a list.