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An Online Catalogue of English Grammar Exercises

When you don“t use 'the' or 'a':

With uncountables (U) - liquids, solids, gases and ideas.
e.g. Rice (U) is good for you but it needs something with a good flavour to make it interesting, like curry.
e.g. You can get information (U) at the tourist office.
e.g. Friends often give advice (U) but we don“t listen.

There is no plural form for 'a'.
e.g. A flower is a beautiful thing.
Flowers are beautiful things.
This means the same thing - they are both generalisations, if you like.

Practice Exercise:

A. (1).... space is difficult to imagine and yet (2)....... man has been to (3)..... Moon and sent (4) ....machines to (5).... Mars and far further. There is no (6).... air between us and the stars and yet light and X-rays and radio waves reach us here on (7)..... earth. We are seeking (8)..... information, trying to find planets with (9)..... air and (10)..... water and (11)..... valuable materials such as (12)..... minerals that we need. Perhaps we will find (13)........ world like ours with (14)................. oxygen that we can breath. Of course, (15)................ real romance would be to find other living species, to communicate with them and share (16)............ knowledge of the universe.

Answer: 1. O 2.O 3.the 4.O 5.O 6.O 7.O or the 8. O 9.O 10.O 11. O 12. O or the 13. a 14.O 15. the 16. our or the

B. At night (1)........ trees release (2)....... carbon dioxide. In the day they make (3)...... oxygen. We need (4)......... trees to live.

Answers: 1.O 2.O 3.O 4. O

C. I love (1)...... trees. They give us (2)..... colour and (3)...... shade. They stop (4)........ noise from (5)...... traffic where we live. There was (6)........ beautiful tree behind my house for years. Then someone cut (7)........ tree down so now all you can see is (8).......buildings. So I“m going to sell (9)........ house because looking into (10)......... other people“s windows is no fun. I preferred looking at (11)........ tree and (12)........ colour it had.

Answers: 1.O 2. O 3. O 4.the 5. the 6.a 7. the 8. O 9. the 10. O 11. the 12. the
n.b. Here you have to use 'the' if it's the one you already know about! Look at number 6, 'a', and number 7, 'the', to see the difference.

D. Zero article and -ing participles which act like nouns are another problem.
e.g. Flying is fun.
Swimming is great exercise.
The playing of radios in the open air is banned in the U.K.

Practice Exercise:

Decide what to put in the gaps below:...(this exercise also contains a few other examples of different types of problems for revision).
1...........fishing on the River Thames is quite good. ...... river is now much cleaner and .......fish can now live in ........ water. 2.........playing football is ..... good way to get exercise. 3.........breaking rules can be fun because it“s forbidden. 4 Doing .........washing in ... launderette is .... great way to meet .... people. 5.........smoking in this office is driving me crazy. 6........ getting married is some film stars“ favourite pass time. 7.........making money is what millionaires enjoy doing. 8.........running ..... business takes up a lot of my father“s time. 9..........making mistakes helps us to learn. 10. Nobody said..........learning English was easy.

Answers: 1.the, the, the, the 2. O, a 3. O 4. the/your, the, a, O 5.the 6.O 7.O 8.O,the 9. O 10.O

E. When you want to say "all" or "every one of a kind" you put nothing!
e.g. Television is a waste of time.
Newspapers never print the news these days.
Shoes are made in factories.
People are the same all over the world.

Practice Exercise:

now substitute these words in one of the above sentences. Radio, supermarkets, pop music, magazines, children, books, computers, clothes, shopping. You don't need 'the'.

F. Is it zero article or "the" or "a" or "some"?

Practice Exercise:
1. university is a place where you study.
2. childhood is supposed to be a happy time.
3. people like snakes.
4. women rarely have equal opportunities.
5. race of aboriginals once lived in Tasmania.

Answer: 1.O 2.O 3.some or O 4.O 5.a,

Practice Exercise:
G. Dialogue:
Girl: What countries have you been to?
Boy: Only Japan and (1) ...... United States and (2) ........Scotland. I liked (3).... scenery in Scotland. It was beautiful. When we went to (4)........New York we saw (5) .... famous Empire State Building and (6) ... Statue of Liberty.
Girl: Wow! I'd love to go there. What was (7) .... weather like?
Boy: Very hot, but (8) .... hotel had (9)......air conditioning, thank goodness.
Girl: Did you sleep well in (10) .... heat?
Boy: (11) ..... bed was terrible but (12) .... room was cool because of (13) .... air conditioning so it wasn“t so bad. And (14) ..... people were really nice.

Answers: 1. the 2.O 3.the 4.O 5.the 6.the 7.the 8.the 9.O 10.the 11. the 1 2. the 13. the 14. O or the

H. Plurals with 'the' or nothing (Ų)
You can“t use 'a' with plural nouns.
When you are talking about a group of things in general you don“t need 'the' e.g. (i) I love books.
(ii) Butterflies only live for a short time.
You can use 'the' with plurals when you want to talk about special ones i.e. ones we both know about e.g. I love the pictures in your house - but not all pictures everywhere.

Practice Exercise:

I. Put 'the' or nothing (O) in the gaps.
(1)............whales live in (2)......sea and are being hunted to extinction. (3).....men who hunt them for (4).........money will lose their jobs when all (5)...........whales are dead. Then (6).......sea will die because (7)......whales live on (8)......plankton, (9).......little creatures will grow too many and (10)......sea will not be clean or clear.

Answer:
1. O 2. the (the sea is regarded as unique and we all know what it is, like 'the Moon') 3. The (only those men and it“s followed by a prepositional clause which describes which men). (4) can be nothing - O, or the, depending on your point of view. (5) the (the phrase is "all the ....." ) (6) the (7) nothing (8) nothing (9) the (you are referring back to plankton, and we share the knowledge that this is what we are both talking about) (10) the

(Sometimes the plus an adjective can be used for talking about a group of people.
You can say "The rich are getting rich and the poor are getting poorer".)

Practice Exercise:
J. Make some sentences with "old" and "’oung", or 'the fit and strong' and 'the weak' or 'the elderly' or 'the sick' or 'the wealthy'. (These are not very frequent but it is possible to make language in this way).
Some answers: ØThe old and the young don“t mix much in England but they live together in many other countries".
'The fit and strong tend to ignore the weak'.
'The elderly don't usually have problems with the young unless the latter are thugs, of course.'

See the A - Z of English Grammar & Usage for the rules.

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