Times Tables — free multiplication game, 2× to 12×

Sixty seconds, one multiplication fact at a time. Type the answer and it submits itself the moment it is right, so there is no Enter key slowing you down. A wrong answer costs three seconds off the clock, which is the whole reason to be sure rather than fast.

The game starts in the 2× to 6× tables and widens by one table for every four correct answers, reaching the 12× at twenty. That is deliberate: an easy opening lets you find your rhythm, and the hard tables arrive only once you have proved you can keep up. Your score is how many you got right. Free, instant, works on a phone.

How to play

• Tap the keypad to enter your answer, or use the number keys on a keyboard.
• The answer submits itself when it matches. There is no Enter key.
• A wrong answer costs three seconds, and the entry box clears itself so you can try again.
• Backspace or the ⌫ key takes a digit back, and costs nothing.
• The tables widen as you score: 2× to 6× at the start, up to 12× by twenty right.

Most of the grid is free, and a dozen facts are not

The 2× to 12× tables hold 121 facts, which sounds like a lot to memorise until you take the grid apart. Multiplication is commutative, so 7×8 and 8×7 are one fact, not two, and that cuts the list to 66. The 2×, 5× and 10× tables follow rules rather than memory, which removes another 27. The squares get drilled far more than anything else and tend to stick. What is left is a couple of dozen facts, clustered almost entirely in the sixes, sevens, eights and nines: 6×7, 6×8, 6×9, 7×8, 7×9 and 8×9 are the ones that make people pause, and 11×12 catches people out because they expect the elevens to stay free.

Two shortcuts do more than any amount of grinding. The nine times table is the famous one: 9×n always has n−1 in the tens column, and its two digits always add up to nine. 9×7 must therefore start with 6 and end with 3, and there is only one way to write that. The elevens are free below ten because you just write the digit twice, and they stop being free at 11×11 and 11×12, which is exactly where people stumble.

The third habit is to lean on a fact you already own. If 7×8 will not come, 7×7 is 49 and one more seven is 56. If 6×8 is slow, 6×8 is double 3×8. This is how fast mental arithmetic actually works: not a bigger lookup table, but a short hop from a fact that is already automatic. If you would rather have all four operations mixed together, Mental Math is the wider drill, and Number Memory tests how many digits you can hold at once instead.

More games

More from 🧠 Brain & reflex tests:

• N-Back Test — A square flashes every two seconds. Was it here N flashes ago? N keeps climbing and you get three lives.
• Reflex Test — Wait for green… TAP! Measure your reaction time in milliseconds and beat your average over 5 rounds.
• Typing Test — 60 seconds, common words, live stats. Get your WPM and accuracy — then beat them.
• Aim Trainer — 30 seconds of targets. Hits, accuracy and speed — the warm-up FPS players swear by.
• Sequence Memory — Watch the tiles light up, repeat the pattern, go one further. Your memory taps out eventually…

Or browse all games.