5 exercises — phrasal verbs appear constantly in code reviews, Jira tickets, standups, and engineering docs. Practise identifying what they mean from the surrounding context.
Phrasal verbs covered in this set
look into — investigate, research in detail
sort out — resolve a problem or messy situation
wrap up — finish, bring to completion
factor out — extract code to a reusable location
phase out — gradually stop using and remove
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
A reviewer comments on your pull request: "The timeout logic looks fragile — I'll look into whether there's a library that handles this more reliably before we merge." What does look into mean in this context?
Look into = investigate, research, or examine something more carefully. It does NOT mean to literally look inside something. In IT contexts you will hear it constantly: "I'll look into the bug", "Can you look into why the tests are flaky?", "We need to look into the performance regression." It always implies active investigation — gathering information, testing hypotheses, or doing research — rather than passive observation. Synonyms: investigate (more formal), dig into (more informal), research, examine. Grammar note: "look into" is inseparable — you cannot split it: "look the issue into" ❌ → "look into the issue" ✅.
2 / 5
A Jira ticket description reads: "This task is blocked — we need to sort out the deployment permissions before proceeding." What does sort out mean here?
Sort out = resolve a problem, deal with a confusing or broken situation, or get something organised so it is no longer an issue. It is one of the most versatile British-English phrasal verbs, widely used in international tech teams: "We need to sort out the CI failures", "Can you sort out access for the new team member?", "I'll sort out the DNS issues by end of day." It implies the problem exists and needs to be fixed or clarified. Formal equivalents: resolve, address, fix, clarify. Grammar: "sort out" is separable: "sort the permissions out" ✅ or "sort out the permissions" ✅. With a pronoun: "sort them out" ✅ (never "sort out them" ❌).
3 / 5
In standup, the team lead says: "We need to wrap up the database migration by Friday or it blocks the release." What does wrap up mean?
Wrap up = finish, complete, bring something to a conclusion. It's the action of putting the last pieces in place and closing out a task. You'll hear it in standups: "Let's wrap up this sprint cleanly", in meetings: "Let's wrap up — we're out of time", and in code reviews: "Once you wrap up the refactor, ping me for re-review." It's separable: "wrap the migration up" ✅ or "wrap up the migration" ✅. In informal contexts, it also means to finish a meeting: "Let's wrap up." Related: wind up (similar meaning, slightly more formal), close out (common in project management: "close out the ticket"), tie up ("tie up loose ends" = deal with remaining small tasks).
4 / 5
A code review comment reads: "You could factor out this validation logic into a shared utility — three other services need the same check." What does factor out mean in this context?
Factor out = extract a piece of code (a function, method, or class) and relocate it to a shared location so it can be reused, rather than duplicated. It comes from mathematics (factoring out a common term: ax + ay = a(x + y)) — the same concept applied to code. You'll see it in code review comments: "Factor this out into a helper", "We should factor out this logic before it gets duplicated further." Related patterns: the DRY principle (Don't Repeat Yourself) motivates factoring out. Similar phrases: extract (as in "Extract Method" refactoring), pull out (informal: "pull this out into a utility"), abstract (more architectural: "abstract this behind an interface").
5 / 5
In a retrospective, a backend engineer says: "I think we should phase out the v1 API by the end of Q2 — continuing to support two API versions is a significant maintenance burden." What does phase out mean?
Phase out = gradually reduce, sunset, or withdraw something from use over a planned timeline — not an abrupt shutdown, but a managed wind-down. It implies: announcing the deprecation, giving users time to migrate, reducing support, and eventually removing it entirely. Common in tech: "We're phasing out IE11 support", "The legacy endpoint will be phased out in v3.0", "SOAP is being phased out in favour of REST." Formal synonym: deprecate (especially in APIs: "This endpoint is deprecated as of v2.4"). The key idea is gradual — "phase" suggests stages. Opposite: phase in = gradually introduce something new. Related: sunset (used as a verb for products: "We're sunsetting the desktop app") and decommission (infrastructure: "decommission the old server").