What is the past tense form of accelerate?

• A. Accelerated
• B. Accelerates
• C. Accelerating
• D. Accelerate

Answer: (A)

In English, the past tense for regular verbs is formed by adding -ed to the base form. For accelerate, that gives accelerated, which is used to describe speeding up that happened in the past: The car accelerated quickly.

The other forms fit different tenses or uses: accelerates is present tense for he/she/it, accelerating is the present participle or gerund (used in continuous tenses or as a noun), and accelerate is the base form (infinitive or present tense with plural subjects). So accelerated is the correct past-tense choice.