Question

What’s in this book? Look at the _____ page. (Choose the word or phrase that best completes the sentence.)
A. content
B. contents
C. content’s
D. contents’

Answer 1

Hint: A noun is a word that functions as the name of a particular object or group of objects like living beings, locations, behaviour, properties, conditions of life or ideas. For instance: cats, Snehal, Burj Khalifa etc.

Complete answer:
There are different types of nouns such as:
1. Common Nouns - The term used for a person, a place or a thing, is a common noun.
2. Proper Nouns - The name of a particular person, location or object is the proper noun.
3. Countable Nouns - Noun that is both a singular and a plural, and it names anything (or anyone), which can be counted.
4. Uncountable Nouns - Noun that has no plural form that corresponds to what normally could not be counted (or does not count).
5. Collective Nouns - Noun that names groups/categories of objects, animals or individuals. The actual group members can be counted, but the whole group is mostly seen as a single unit.
6. Abstract Nouns - These are used to indicate emotions, thoughts, qualities or feelings.
7. Possessive Nouns - We usually add ('s) to a singular noun and an apostrophe to a plural noun, if we want to prove that something belongs to somebody or something.

Let us now look at the sentence given in the question:
“What’s in this book? Look at the _____ page.”
Here, someone is talking about a specific book.

Option (A) content - It expresses thoughts in writing. As we can see that a whole book can give the idea of what it is for but considering a single page cannot. Since the sentence requires information about the entire book, it cannot be acquired for a single page. Therefore, this option is incorrect.

Option (B) contents – This is the correct option. The term 'contents page' refers to the page in a book that contains a list of the book's chapters or themes. The page shows the themes or brief summary of all the events that will take place in the book and thus gives a general idea about the book.

Option (C) content’s - The apostrophe " ’s " used in "content’s" often indicates possession or belonging, but in the given sentence there is nothing of this sense to represent any form of possession so this choice is also wrong.

Option (D) contents’ - The apostrophe " s’ " used in " contents’ " often indicates possession or belonging, but in the given sentence there is nothing of this sense. This choice is also wrong.

Therefore, the correct option is (B) contents. “What’s in this book? Look at the contents page.”

Note: The attributive noun in English grammar is a noun that modifies another noun and serves as an adjective. It is often recognized as a noun premodifier, a noun adjunct and a converted adjective.