On-call handoffs are high-stakes moments when information must be transferred clearly and completely to ensure continuity of incident response. From handing off and briefing an incoming engineer to acknowledging alerts and escalating unresolved issues, on-call operations have a precise vocabulary. This exercise covers the collocations used in SRE handoff runbooks, PagerDuty workflows, and on-call culture.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Before finishing her shift, the on-call engineer prepared a summary to ___ to the incoming engineer.
Hand off to the incoming engineer is the standard on-call operations collocation — on-call responsibilities are formally 'handed off' during shift changes. 'Pass' and 'give' are informal; 'send' focuses on delivery mechanism. 'Hand off' is the canonical term for the structured transfer of on-call duty, implying a deliberate, complete transfer of context and responsibility.
2 / 5
The incoming on-call engineer read the handoff notes and agreed to ___ the ongoing incident from her colleague.
Take over the incident is the natural on-call handoff collocation — an incoming engineer 'takes over' an active incident from the outgoing engineer. 'Accept' and 'receive' are passive; 'continue' implies no change of ownership. 'Take over' implies assuming full responsibility for the incident's resolution from the moment of handoff.
3 / 5
The outgoing engineer made sure to ___ the incoming engineer on the current status of the degraded payment service.
Brief the incoming engineer is the precise on-call handoff collocation — the outgoing engineer 'briefs' their successor with a concise, structured summary of the current situation. 'Update' and 'inform' are also correct; 'tell' is informal. 'Brief' implies a structured, efficient transfer of essential context, which is the specific purpose of an on-call handoff.
4 / 5
The on-call engineer decided to ___ the database connection issue to the platform team lead after an hour without resolution.
Escalate the issue is the standard on-call incident management collocation — unresolved issues are 'escalated' to invoke additional expertise or authority. 'Raise' is also used in British English; 'report' is informational; 'pass' is informal. 'Escalate' implies that the current engineer has exhausted their ability to resolve the issue and needs to invoke a higher level of support.
5 / 5
The platform team required that all on-call engineers ___ any active alerts when taking over a shift.
Acknowledge active alerts is the precise on-call operations collocation — acknowledging an alert in PagerDuty or similar tools means formally accepting responsibility for it. 'Confirm' and 'review' are prior steps; 'check' is informal. 'Acknowledge' is the specific technical and procedural term for the action that marks an alert as owned and under investigation.