Question

Fill in the blank with the correct option:
_______ dogs were barking at the strangers.

 a. some
 b. any
 c. much
 d. less

Answer 1

Hint: A countable noun is a noun which can be counted in cardinal numbers (1, 2, 3 . . .). For example- She purchased a book.
Uncountable nouns are the nouns that we cannot count with numbers.

Complete solution:
In the given question, the noun ‘dogs’ is a countable noun.
Let us thus analyze the options given to us in this question:
Option (a.), 'some', refers to - relatively many but unspecified in number.
Therefore, option (a.) is correct as

Option (b.), ‘any', refers to - one or some or every or all without specification.
Therefore, option (b.) is incorrect as ‘any dogs’ is grammatically incorrect as ‘any’ cannot be used with a plural noun.

Option (c.), ‘much', refers to - a great amount or extent.
Therefore, option (c.) is incorrect as ‘dogs’ is a countable noun whereas ‘much’ is used with uncountable nouns.

Option (d.), ‘less', refers to - a quantifier meaning not as great in amount or degree.
Therefore, option (d.) is incorrect as there is no comparison provided which indicates that there is not as great a number of dogs as there was before.

Note: In this question, there is a positive sentence, which tells us that something is so. Any sentence that tells us that something is not so is called a negative sentence. It contains a negative word like not, never, no, none, or a negative verb.