Question

Fill in the blanks with the most appropriate words.
In _______ past _______ most people lived by doing _______ agriculture.

a) the / the / no article
b) no article / no article / no article
c) no article / the / no article
d) the / no article / no article

Answer 1

Hint: Articles are not used before nouns used in a general and factual sense.

Complete step-by-step answer:

In order to choose the correct article, one needs to look at what comes after it. If there is a proper noun after the blank, you cannot use an article. If there is a common noun after the blank, you can use an article. However, if the common noun is being used in a general or factual sense, articles are not used. Let’s have a look at our options, they would look like this:

In the past, most people lived by doing agriculture - This sentence is grammatically incorrect as the phrase ‘the most people’ is wrong. So, this is an incorrect option.
In past, most people lived by doing agriculture - This sentence is grammatically incorrect as the phrase ‘in past’ is wrong. So, this is an incorrect option.
In past, most people lived by doing agriculture - This sentence is grammatically incorrect as the phrases ‘in past’ and ‘the most people’ are wrong. So, this is an incorrect option.
In the past, most people lived by doing agriculture - This sentence is grammatically correct because there are no articles before the general nouns. So, this is the correct option.

Note: Use the trial and error method to correctly identify the required articles.