Question

Identify the article which best fills in the blank.
Liz doesn’t usually wear jewellery but yesterday she was wearing _____ necklace.
A) A
B) An
C) The
D) No article

Answer 1

Hint: The word that follows the blank is ‘necklace’, which is a noun. The kind of article that we use before it, is going to determine whether the noun is a special or a specific necklace, or is it just a common or a random necklace.

Complete answer:
Articles ‘A’ and ‘An’ are those articles which refer to completely random nouns, and are hence called indefinite articles; while the article ‘The’ is called a definite article due to the specificity in its usage.
Option A) A – This is an indefinite article, meaning that it refers to a noun that is not specific. It could be any random noun. In the given sentence, we are told about a random necklace and nothing specific about it has been told. Therefore, ‘A’ is the correct article.
Option B) An – This is also an indefinite article and is used exactly in the same way as ‘A’. The only difference is that ‘as’ is used before nouns that begin with a vowel sound during their pronunciation. ‘Necklace’ starts with a consonant sound. Therefore, this option is incorrect.
Option C) The – The article ‘the’ is used when we want to talk about a specific noun or a pronoun. If the sentence provides more context or detail with regard to a specific necklace, only then can we use this article. For e.g. She wore the necklace that I gifted her last year. Thus, this option is wrong.
Option D) No Article – This option is incorrect as we have already established that the correct answer is Option (A) A.

Thus, the correct answer is Option (A) Liz doesn’t usually wear jewellery but yesterday she was wearing a necklace.

Note: Out of three articles mentioned above, ‘a’ and ‘an’ are used only before singular nouns. They cannot be used before a plural noun. ‘The’ on the other hand can be used before singular as well as before plural nouns. The usage of ‘a’ and ‘an’ is also dependent on the sound of the first letter of the noun, whereas while using ‘the’ we can place it before words starting with either vowels or consonants.