Question

Fill in the blank with the most suitable articles.
My brother is ____ soldier. He is in ____ army.
A. a, the
B. a, no article required
C. a, an
D. No article required; no article required

Answer 1

Hint: Articles, ‘a, an and the’ are used with nouns to form appropriate noun phrases. We use articles to identify whether the mentioned noun is specific or generalized.

Complete answer: As given in the hint, articles are determiners that help in describing a noun.
Let’s look at the two types of articles-
1) 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. Example- An apricot, an egg, a bat, a pig, etc.
2) 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 Thames, the park, the door, etc.
In the given question: We can conclude that X’s brother is a soldier. He is in the army. Here, we have used ‘a’ with a soldier, because ‘soldier’ is a common noun. And we have used ‘the’ with the army because it is a specific noun.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
Option A. ‘a, the’ is the correct option because we use ‘a’ with common nouns and ‘the’ with specific nouns.
Option B. ‘a, no article required’ is an incorrect option because we need to use an article with the noun, ‘army’.
Option C. ‘a, an’ is an incorrect option because ‘army’ is a specified noun.
Option D. ‘no article required; no article required’ is an incorrect option because we need to use articles with both the nouns, ‘soldier’ and ‘army’.The correct answer is Option ‘a’.

Note: Articles act as adjectives because they help in describing nouns. Keep in mind, we cannot use indefinite articles to describe plural nouns.