Telling Time & Elapsed Time Clock

Drag the clock hands to set the time, read the digital display, and learn quarter-hour labels like "half past" and "quarter to." Switch to Elapsed Time mode to calculate durations, or try Schedule Puzzles to test your skills. All computation runs in your browser.

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☀ Daytime (AM)

The time is

10:10 AM

Reference Guide

Reading an Analog Clock

An analog clock has two hands that point to numbers around a circle.

  • Hour hand (short, thick) moves slowly and tells you the hour
  • Minute hand (long, thin) moves faster and tells you the minutes

Read the hour first (where the short hand points), then the minutes (where the long hand points). Each number on the clock face represents 5 minutes.

Quarter Hours

There are four special positions the minute hand passes through each hour.

  • :00 — "o'clock" (minute hand at 12)
  • :15 — "quarter past" (minute hand at 3)
  • :30 — "half past" (minute hand at 6)
  • :45 — "quarter to" the next hour (minute hand at 9)

These names come from dividing the clock face into four equal quarters of 15 minutes each.

AM and PM

The day is split into two 12-hour halves.

  • AM runs from midnight (12:00 AM) to just before noon
  • PM runs from noon (12:00 PM) to just before midnight
  • 12:00 PM is noon (lunchtime)
  • 12:00 AM is midnight (bedtime)

AM stands for "ante meridiem" (before midday) and PM stands for "post meridiem" (after midday).

Elapsed Time

Elapsed time is how much time has passed between a start time and an end time.

  • Count forward from the start time to the end time
  • First count whole hours, then add remaining minutes
  • Be careful when crossing noon (AM to PM) or midnight (PM to AM)

For example, from 10:30 AM to 1:15 PM is 2 hours and 45 minutes. Count 10:30 to 12:30 (2 hours), then 12:30 to 1:15 (45 minutes).