Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word:
“I feel like going to the cinema tonight.”
“Good idea. What’s ____ at the moment?”
A) In
B) On
C) At
D) Off

Answer 1

Hint: The options provided in the question are all prepositions. These are words or phrases that are used to indicate the physical position of a noun or its relation with respect to other figures of speech in the sentence. The object towards which the preposition indicates an action is called ‘a prepositional object’.

Complete answer:
In the first sentence, the first speaker is talking about going to the cinema. Therefore, we know that the conversation is about the availability of a movie. We use certain prepositions to indicate the availability of place, person or in this case, movie or event. Let us look for the most appropriate one.

Now let us look into the given options:
Option A) In – The preposition ‘in’ is used when we want to say that something or someone is available. For e.g. I am at his office, but he isn’t in at the moment. ‘In’ is not used for indicating the availability of programs or events or in this case, the cinema. Therefore, this option is wrong.
Option B) On – This preposition is used for indicating the availability of programs etc. For e.g. What’s on the television right now? Similarly, in the question, it will be; “Good idea. What’s on at the moment?” Therefore, this is the correct option.
Option C) At – ‘At’ is a preposition that is used to indicate the position of an object or subject. For e.g. What’s playing at the theatres? Also, the blank is followed immediately by an ‘at’ which cannot be repeated after another ‘at’ in the same sentence. Thus, this option is incorrect.
Option D) Off – The preposition ‘off’ is used when something is separated or removed or someone goes away. For e.g. He went off to the movies with his friends. This option is not suitable for filling the blank in the statement given in the question. Hence, this option is incorrect.

Thus, the correct answer is an option (B) “Good idea. What’s on at the moment?”.

Note: When an object is preceded by a preposition, the object or the prepositional object is called ‘object complement’. In such a case the preposition is still called a ‘preposition’. When the object complement is succeeded by a preposition, then it is called ‘a postposition’.