Question

Fill in the blank with an appropriate article.
Rustom was ________ young Parsee.
A) An
B) A
C) The
d) No article

Answer 1

Hint: The word Parsee is singular while the adjective young begins with a consonant letter.

Complete answer::
Articles are words that designate whether a given noun is distinct or indistinct. There are three articles- a, an and the.
Let us look at the uses of the three articles.
‘A’ is used when we are speaking about just one noun. Note that these nouns must begin with consonant letters like B, C, D, F, G and so on. The article a cannot be used with a noun that begins with a vowel. This would make it a grammatical error. For e.g. A mountain.
‘An’ is also used when we are speaking about just one noun. However, unlike the article a, the article an is used before nouns that begin with the five vowels, namely, A, E, I, O and U. Using the article an along with a consonant would render it grammatically incorrect. For e.g. An egg.
‘The’ is used when speaking about more than one noun. E.g. The pens. The is also used when we are speaking about something in particular or when something has already been spoken about before. For e.g. The sun, The United States of America, etc.
In the above question, we have to use an article that stands for a singular noun. Furthermore, as that noun is preceded by an adjective beginning with a consonant, we must use a consonant compatible article. This makes option ‘b’ a, the correct answer.

Thus,option ‘b’ is the correct answer.

Note: Always check whether the noun is singular or plural and whether it starts with a vowel or a consonant.