Question

Fill in the blanks with appropriate articles with the help of the hint in the 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

Answer: (C)

a ; the

The articles 'a, an, the' are placed before nouns, to modify or describe them.
'A' and 'an' are indefinite nouns: they refer to those nouns that are non-specific, their identity is not made known. For e.g. 'a man', 'a duck in the pond', etc.
'The' is a definite article and refers to a specific noun, whose identity is made known. e.g. 'The woman in that shop', 'the fruit from this tree', etc.
In the given sentence, the noun 'country' is a specific noun, hence 'the' will be used.
So, options A 'a; a' and D 'the; a' can be eliminated.
Option B: 'The' is used for 'country'. But, it is not used for 'village.
A country has many villages. It is not mentioned which village 'Tim' lives in. So, 'the' cannot be used for 'small village'. Hence B is incorrect.
Option C: Since the noun 'village' is non-specific, 'a' is suitable. The use of 'the' for the noun 'country' has already been explained.
Hence, option C is correct.