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High-Frequency Phrasal Verbs

To help you practice and review phrasal verbs, we've divided the Phrasal Verb (PHaVE) List compiled by Garnier & Schmitt (2015) into 10 Quizlet practice sets with 15 phrasal verbs each. Only the most common meaning(s) for each phrasal verb are given.

This list does not include all of the phrasal verbs in English, and it does not include all of the meanings of the phrasal verbs it contains. This is intentional so that you can target the frequent occurrences first. In fact, the phrasal verbs and meanings included in this list account for approximately 83% of phrasal verb occurrences1  (Garnier & Schmitt, 2015).

Organization of Sets

The sets are organized by frequency, with the highest frequency words starting in Set 1. Each set also has a corresponding set with practice sentences that allow you to practice using the phrasal verbs in context. We recommend that you practice both sets for each group of words.

Quizlet

The practice sets are embedded below, but you can also practice them in your browser or in the mobile app. If you create a Quizlet account, you can track your progress and prioritize the phrasal verbs you haven't yet mastered. Each set can be practiced with several exercises and games. Sets 4-10 will be posted soon.

References

Garnier, M., & Schmitt, N. (2015). The PHaVE List: A pedagogical list of phrasal verbs and their most frequent meaning senses. Language Teaching Research, 19(6), 645–666. (Supplemental materials are available on the journal website or can be accessed here: PHaVE List Users' Manual, PHaVE (alphabetical), PHaVE (frequency rank), and PHaVE List with most frequent meaning senses). 1

  • 1a1bBased on occurrences in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), a large, widely-used corpus with over one billion words of text from a variety of genres and mediums.