Question

Fill in the blanks with appropriate articles with the help of the hint in brackets:
Tim lives in _____ small village in ______ country. (We are referring to a specific country here)
A)a ; a
B)the ; the
C)a ; the
D)the ; a

Answer 1

Hint: We use the article ‘the’ before a noun that is specific or definite. Articles ‘a’ and ‘an’ are used before nouns that are not specific or indefinite.

Complete step-by-step answer:

We know from the hint that ‘the’ is used before the nouns that are specific. We are told that a specific country is being referred to, in the question. Hence, we can infer that the article ‘the’ shall be put before ‘country’. Thus, we can eliminate options A and D as possibly correct answers, as option A and option D have indefinite articles, ‘a’, for the second blank.
Since the village doesn’t have a name or any other specifications about the details of it and we do not have any specific knowledge of the same. We’re uncertain of its identity and hence, we shall put the article ‘a’ for it. Thus, we can eliminate options B as a possibly correct answer, as it has the definite article, ‘the’, for the first blank.
Observing this, we can conclude that option C is the correct answer, as it has the correct articles for the respective blanks, that is, ‘a’ which is an indefinite article suitable for the noun, village, and ‘the’ which is a definite article suitable for the noun, country, which has been given to us as some specific country.

Note: Articles are always used to determine the nouns. Only an adjective can be placed between an article and a noun. Articles are of two types - definite and indefinite. The same has already been described to us in the hint given. Also, it is to be noted that, ‘a’ is put only before the words starting with a consonant and ‘an’ is put before the words starting with a vowel. A / an convey the quantity as one and hence, are not to be used for nouns that are plural. Lastly, we should know that only proper nouns do not have any articles placed before them.