Is your English level A2/Pre-intermediate? Test your English CEFR Level!
This English grammar quiz is designed to help learners check if their English proficiency level according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) as A2/Pre-intermediate.
The test covers a range of grammar and vocabulary concepts that are typically associated with learners at this level. These concepts include more advanced verb tenses, more complex sentence structures, and a wider range of vocabulary related to various topics such as work, travel, and current events.
After taking the quiz, learners would be able to see where they stand in terms of their English proficiency and if they are ready to move to the next level. Passing the challenge indicates the control of English grammar enough to move to the next level.
Questions
If you've ever asked You like coffee? with rising intonation and gotten a confused look — you've felt the gap between casual and grammatical English questions. Many languages form questions with intonation alone, but English usually requires inversion (Are you ready?) or do-support (Do you like coffee?). Skip the structure and your questions sound like uncertain statements.
Questions in English use inversion of subject and an auxiliary (Can she dance?) or do-support when no auxiliary is present (Does the milk go in the fridge?). Yes/no questions, wh-questions, negative questions, and tag questions all share this machinery.
Sentence
If your writing has been called "choppy" or "monotonous", the issue is usually sentence variety — not vocabulary. English readers expect a mix of short and long, simple and complex sentences. Even the same content reads completely differently depending on how you stitch the clauses together.
A sentence is the largest grammatical unit, made of one or more clauses. Four structural types: simple (one independent clause), compound (two+ independents joined), complex (independent + dependent), compound-complex (multiple of each). Ends with period, question mark, or exclamation mark.
Future tense
If you've ever wondered why a native speaker said I'm meeting her tomorrow instead of I will meet her tomorrow — you've felt the future-tense puzzle. English has at least four common ways to talk about the future, and they're not interchangeable. Pick the wrong one and you sound either unnaturally formal or surprisingly vague about your own plans.
English uses several constructions for future time: will + infinitive (predictions, spontaneous decisions: I'll call), be going to (planned intentions, evidence-based predictions: It's going to rain), the present continuous for arrangements (I'm meeting Sam at six), and the present simple for fixed schedules (The train leaves at 8).
Simple tense
If you're at A1/A2 and the array of English tenses feels overwhelming, here's the good news: most of what you need to say at the start fits in the simple forms. I work, I worked, I will work — three forms cover habits, completed past actions, and basic future. Master these first; the progressive and perfect come more easily once the simple is solid.
The simple aspect is the unmarked verb form — no progressive -ing, no have + past participle. I go, I went, I will go. Marks single completed actions, habits, or permanent states.
Past tense
If you've ever told a story in English and felt the timeline get tangled — I came home, the dog ate, the cat slept — you've hit the limits of using simple past for everything. The past tense system has four forms specifically because real stories have layered timing: things that happened before other things, actions caught in progress, sequences of completed events.
The past tense has four English forms: simple past (I walked), past progressive (I was walking), past perfect (I had walked — earlier than another past event), past perfect progressive (I had been walking — ongoing up to a past point). Plus irregular verbs for the simple-past form.
Progressive tense
If you've ever paused over I work in London vs I'm working in London and not been sure which to pick — you've hit the simple/progressive distinction. The first means it's your usual job; the second means it's temporary, going on right now. Native speakers reach for this distinction constantly without thinking; learners have to make it deliberate.
The progressive aspect marks ongoing action at a time of reference, formed with be + -ing: I am working, She was reading, They will be travelling. Marks temporary or in-progress events. Stative verbs (know, believe, own) don't normally take it.
Present tense
If you've ever told someone I am living here for ten years (should be have lived or have been living) — you've hit the present perfect's main puzzle. English insists that "started in the past, still true now" lives in the present perfect, not the simple present. Internalise that one rule and a whole class of common errors disappears.
The present tense in English has four forms: simple present (I work) for habits and general truths; present progressive (I am working) for now or temporary; present perfect (I have worked) for past with present relevance; present perfect progressive (I have been working) for ongoing duration up to now.
Modal verb
If you've ever struggled with the difference between You must do this (strong command) and You should do this (advice) — or It might rain (possible) and It will rain (certain) — you've felt how much modal verbs do in English. They're how the language signals certainty, obligation, possibility, and politeness, and getting them right is what stops your speech from sounding either pushy or wishy-washy.
A modal verb is an auxiliary — can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would — adding meaning around ability, permission, possibility, obligation, or speculation. Always followed by the bare infinitive (can swim, never can to swim), and never inflected for person.
Imperative mood
If you've ever told a stranger Sit down! in English and watched their face drop, you've felt the imperative's main pitfall: it's grammatically simple but socially loaded. In English, bare commands often come across as rude, even when you mean them politely. Knowing when to soften them (Could you sit down?) is what separates abrupt from polite.
The imperative mood is the form for commands, instructions, and requests: Sit down, Don't touch, Have a nice trip. Bare verb form, no stated subject, negated with don't.
Verb mood
If grammar references confuse you with terms like "subjunctive" or "conditional" — and you've never quite understood why English needs them — you've hit the verb-mood layer. Each mood marks a different attitude: fact vs command vs hypothetical vs polite recommendation. Once that map is clear, structures like if I were you or I suggest he go stop looking like exceptions and start looking like a system.
Verb mood signals the speaker's attitude toward the action. The four English moods: indicative (facts), imperative (commands), subjunctive (hypotheticals, formal recommendations), and conditional (would/could constructions).
Preposition
If you've ever written I'm interested on you (should be in) or I'm good on football (should be at) — you've hit prepositions' main pitfall. Their choice is mostly idiomatic, not logical, and rarely matches what your native language does. Memorising the right preposition for each common verb and adjective is what stops your speech from sounding subtly off.
A preposition is a small word linking a noun or noun phrase to other parts of the sentence: in, on, at, to, from, with. Marks time, place, manner, or abstract relationships. Choice is largely idiomatic, especially in fixed combinations (depend on, good at, afraid of).
Determinative
If you've wondered why grammar books sometimes call the, this, and my "determinatives" and other times "determiners", you've spotted a useful distinction. The two terms aren't synonyms: one names a word class, the other names a job. Once that clicks, references in modern grammar books stop being confusing.
A determinative is a part of speech — a word class including articles (a, the), demonstratives (this, that), possessives (my, your), and quantifiers (some, many). A determiner is the syntactic role these words usually play before a noun.
Article
If you speak a language without articles — Russian, Japanese, Polish, Korean, Mandarin — articles in English are probably the single most stubborn topic you face. The rules feel small but the wrong choice (I went to the home instead of I went home) immediately marks you as non-native. Mastering articles is the highest-leverage move you can make for sounding natural.
Articles are a small group of determinatives — a, an, the, plus the zero article (no article at all) — that signal whether a noun is specific or general. The choice depends on the listener's knowledge, the noun type, and idiomatic context.
Possessive
If you've ever stared at its and it's and not been sure which one belonged in your sentence, you've met English's most-confused possessive. The fix is small but immediate: its (no apostrophe) is the possessive of it; it's (with apostrophe) always means it is or it has. Get this right and you instantly look more careful as a writer.
The possessive form shows ownership in English. Most nouns take 's (Sarah's book); plural nouns ending in s take just an apostrophe (students' essays). Pronouns have irregular possessive determiners (my, your, his, her) and pronouns (mine, yours, his, hers).
Adjective and adverb
If you've ever wondered why she sings beautifully sounds right but she sings beautiful sounds wrong, you've bumped into the adjective-vs-adverb split. Pick the wrong one and the sentence sounds clearly off — even though native speakers couldn't always tell you the rule. Getting this distinction reliable is what makes descriptions land instead of stumble.
Adjectives describe nouns: a fast car, the soup is hot. Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs: he drove fast, unbelievably smart. The same word can flip roles — fast covers both — but most words don't.
Adverb
If you've ever written she sings beautiful when you meant beautifully, you've hit the most common adverb mistake. The fix sounds small, but it's the kind of detail that signals fluency at a glance — and once you see the pattern, you stop second-guessing it.
An adverb modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb, telling you how, when, where, how often, or to what degree: she sings beautifully, unbelievably fast, we go there often. Most form with -ly (quick → quickly), but a stubborn group don't change shape at all: fast, well, hard, late.
Adjective
If you've ever written a French nice old wooden table and felt something was wrong without knowing why, you've hit the adjective-order rule. English insists on a particular sequence — opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material — and rearranging the words makes a sentence sound non-native even when every individual choice is correct.
An adjective describes a noun or pronoun: a tall building, the soup is hot. Most adjectives also take comparative and superlative forms (taller, tallest), which is how you compare things — another core piece you need from day one.
Imperative sentence
If you've ever followed a recipe in English (Preheat the oven. Whisk the eggs. Fold gently.), you've read pages of imperative sentences. They're how English packages instructions cleanly, but they're also a tonal minefield in everyday conversation: the same sentence that's perfect in a recipe can sound bossy at a dinner table.
An imperative sentence delivers a command, request, instruction, or invitation: Look at me. / Don't touch. / Have a great trip! Bare verb, implied you subject, ending in a full stop or exclamation mark. One of the four sentence types in English.
Compound sentence
If you've ever been told you've written a "comma splice", you've hit the most common compound-sentence trap. The sun was shining, everyone appeared happy — looks fine, reads fine, but technically wrong. Once you can spot independent clauses, this error becomes obvious and easy to fix three different ways.
A compound sentence joins two or more independent clauses, each a complete thought. The link is a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, so, yet) with a comma, or a semicolon on its own: I started on time, but I arrived late.
A2 | Elementary | Pre-intermediate
If you can order coffee, ask for directions, and tell someone what you did yesterday — but struggle the moment the conversation drifts into anything abstract — you're operating at A2. Knowing this matters: A2 is the level where most learners plateau because they reach for B2 material too early and burn out. Stay here and your foundations get unbreakable.
A2 is the elementary level in the CEFR framework, covering routine communication and the first wave of real grammar: past simple and continuous, present perfect, basic modal verbs, first conditional, and common verb-pattern rules.
Difficulty: Easy
If a textbook leaves you confused, sometimes the issue isn't the topic — it's that the practice material is layered with extra complications. Filtering by Easy strips that away. You get one rule at a time, in plain everyday language, with no trick questions. It's how you make a shaky foundation solid before stacking more on top.
The Easy difficulty tag marks beginner-level questions and challenges — typically A1 or early A2. Single-rule focus, short sentences, common vocabulary, one clear correct answer.