Question

Fill in the blank with the correct option-
He has already spent ______ rupees he had.
(a) few
(b) the few
(c) a few
(d) only

Answer 1

Hint: Read the sentence and try to understand what it is trying to convey. Go through the options and choose the best suitable one which agrees with the context and is grammatically correct.

Complete answer:
 Adjectives are those words that are used to modify and describe nouns and pronouns. For example- I had a little money. Here, ‘little’ is an adjective that is modifying the noun ‘money’.
In the given question- We can conclude that ‘rupees’ is a noun. Hence, we need to choose a suitable adjective to modify it.
Now, if we choose the adjective ‘few’ to modify the noun, we need to use a suitable article to modify the adjective.
Let’s look at articles-
(i) Indefinite articles- ‘A and an’ are known as indefinite articles. They are used with generalized nouns. We use ‘a’ with singular nouns that begin with a consonant sound, whereas ‘an’ is used with singular nouns that begin with a vowel sound. For Example- a girl, an apple, a boy, an elephant, etc.
(ii) Definite article- ‘The’ is a definite article. It is used with particular nouns and proper nouns. We use ‘the’ with both singular and plural nouns. Example- The Yamuna, the park, etc.
Hence, the correct answer is ‘the few’ because we are talking about a specific amount.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
Option a- ‘few’ is an incorrect option because we need an article to modify the adjective.
Option b- ‘the few’ is the correct option because the definite article ‘the’ modifies nouns that are specific or particular in sense.
Option c- ‘a few’ is an incorrect option because the indefinite article ‘a’ modifies common nouns.
Option d- ‘only’ is an incorrect option because it is an adverb that describes a verb. Hence, the correct answer is Option ‘b’.

Note:
We use articles to identify whether the mentioned noun is specific or generalized. Keep in mind, we cannot use indefinite articles to modify plural nouns.