ARTICLES EXERCISES

Articles Rules
with unique nouns, e.g. the earth, the
NO ARTICLE is used
sky,
the sun, the Parthenon, the Taj Mahal
with plural or uncountable nouns when
we talk about them in general before musical instruments (after play)
Lions are wild animals. My mother can play the piano.
Life is too short.
before names of families, nationalities,
before proper nouns groups of people, e.g. the Chinese, the
This is James. Smiths, the poor
before words morning, afternoon,
before names of meals, e.g. breakfast, and
evening
games/sports, e.g. golf
I go to school in the morning.
Tennis is an exciting sport.
in the superlative, e.g. the best
with demonstrative adjectives or possessives
This film is great. with cinema, theatre, radio
I like her new boyfriend. Let’s go to the cinema tonight.
with the words school, church, bed, work, with names of hotels, restaurants, pubs,
hospital, prison, university, home when we refer to cinemas, museums, galleries, e.g. the
the purpose for which they exist. Hilton (hotel), the Red Lion (pub), the
Criminals are sent to prison. Odeon (cinema), the British Museum
I didn’t go to work yesterday. I stayed at home.
with names of places and buildings
with television containing of, e.g. the Tower of London
What’s on TV tonight?
with names of newspapers, e.g. the Times
with means of transport
I come to school by bus. Geography
with shops, restaurants, hotels and banks country names in the plural and
named after people (ending in -s or ‘s), e.g. Harrods, containing of, e.g. the Netherlands,
McDonald’s, Lloyds Bank the United States of America;
exceptions: the Congo
Geography
directions of the world, e.g. the north
continents, e.g. Asia, Africa oceans, e.g. the Pacific
countries, e.g. France, Poland seas, e.g. the Baltic Sea
cities, e.g. London, Budapest, BUT the Hague rivers, e.g. the Thames
streets, e.g. Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square, mountain ranges, e.g. the Alps
BUT the High Street, the Strand
canals, e.g. the Panama Canal
lakes, e.g. Ontario
deserts, e.g. the Sahara
single islands or mountains, e.g. Jersey
geographical regions, e.g. the Middle East
but in the structure the island of, e.g. the
groups of islands, e.g. the Bahamas
island of Madagascar, the Isle of Wight
A and AN are used
THE is used
before singular countable nouns which are
underfined or are mentioned for the first time
with countable (singular or plural) or
uncountable nouns when we are talking before phrases of time and measurements, e.g.
about something specific, e.g. when per week/weekly:
something is mentioned for the second I go on holiday twice a year. Our car can do 220
time or is already known. kilometres an hour. Tomatoes are $2 a kilo.
The lions in the zoo look happy.
I've read a book on the life of Lance
Armstrong. after half and quite
We need half a pound of sugar. This is quite a
good story.

Exercise: Fill the gaps with 'a', 'an', 'the' or 'X' (no article)
 
Frank Crawford is ______ American citizen. He is also ______ FBI agent (and has ______ ID card
to prove it) whose qualifications include ______ M.A. and  ______ Ph.D. - and he has ______ I.Q.
of 160. Because his father was ______ M.P. in ______  England and his mother, ______ Italian,
worked as  ______ G.P. there, Frank often sees things from  ______ European perspective. He
strongly supports ______  idea of  ______ united Europe. He was recently in London for ______
one-day conference on ______  organised crime, and he gave ______ speech which
lasted  ______ hour. (You can get ______ copy of his speech by sending ______ s.a.e. to ______
address below.) When in London he always stays at ______ hotel in  ______ Holland Park,
near  ______ Oxford Street, where he always eats ______ onion sandwich for ______  breakfast.
When Frank inherited ______ fortune from ______ uncle recently, he used it to found ______
University and buy ______ x-ray machine for ______ hospital.

Exercise 2: Five of the following sentences are correct, some need 'the'. Either put √ or indicate
where the definite article (the) should go.
 
a) Martina is learning to play violin. ____________
b) Jennifer is learning to play chess. ___________
c)'Is this Oxford road?' said lorry driver. __________
d) John works in a shop in Park Lane. ___________
e) This book consists of quotations from great philosophers. ___________
f) We reached our destination at sunset. ___________
g) Terry spent summer climbing in Alps. ___________
h) After they had completed their work in prison, bricklayers moved to another site. __________
i) Mr. Watt refused even to visit home his relatives wanted to put him in. __________
j) History was his favourite subject at school. __________
 
Exercise 3. Put 'a', 'an', 'the', 'X' (no article), 'my', 'his', 'her', 'our', 'your' or 'their' in the gaps if
necessary.
 
a) Ask _________ woman in front of you to take off  __________ hat.
b) Someone threw ________ egg which struck ________ speaker on ________ shoulder.
c) He fell down _________ flight of steps and broke _________ leg.
d) You'll strain _________ eyes if you read in __________ bad light.
e) He was ________ very tall man with ________ dark hair and _________ small beard, but I
couldn't see _________ eyes because he was wearing _________ dark glasses.

Fill in the article a, an or the where necessary. Put x where no article is used.

Exercise 4

1.I like   blue car more than   red one.

2.Where's   money I lent you last week?

3.Do you still live in   London?

4.Is your sister working in   centre of town?

5.Susan's father works as   dentist.

6.Oranges are 99 pence   kilo.

7.What do you usually have for   dinner?

8.I have   terrible headache.

9.We have   whole weekend free to explore the town.

10.The car does 150 kilometres   hour.

Exercise 5.
Choose the correct (and most natural-sounding) response to complete each sentence:

1. Q: What did you get for your birthday?    NO ARTICLE

A: I got __________ lot of good presents.    a
   a    the
   NO ARTICLE
   the 3. Q: Where are you going for your vacation?
A: I'm going to ____________ Dominican
2. Q: What did you get for your birthday? Republic.
A: I got ____________ lots of good presents.
   a
 yesterday.
   NO ARTICLE
   NO ARTICLE
   the
   a
4. Q: What do you think of Mexico?
A: I think it's _______ very beautiful country.    the

   the 8. Q: Do you think he's lying?

A: No, he's the kind of _____________ guy
   a that always tells the truth.
   NO ARTICLE    a
5. Q: Do you have a scarf I could borrow?    the
A: Yes, I have two. _________ blue one and
_________ beige one. Which one would you    NO ARTICLE
like to borrow?
9. Q: Do you remember ___________ exact
   The, the date when the war started?
A: No, I don't.
   NO ARTICLE
   an
   A, a
   NO ARTICLE
6. Q: How is your grandfather?
A: He's ______________little sick, but it's    the
nothing serious.
10. Q: Are you watching _______ Lakers-
   a Celtics game? What's ___________score?
A: The Lakers are winning by 15.
   the
   the, the
   NO ARTICLE
   the, a,
7. Q: Where were you _________ last night?
I called you three times.    the, NO ARTICLE
A: Oh, sorry. My cellphone was off all day
 HOMEWORK
Please complete the following exercise using a/an/the/X (no article) in the underlined spaces
where appropriate. Change capital letters to lower case letters at the beginning of a sentence if
necessary.

Ms Parrot, (1) _______ most famous lady detective of (2) ______ twenty-first century, was born in

(3) ______ United Kingdom in (4) ______ 1960s. Since then, she has been to many countries,

including (5) ___ Portugal, Singapore and Australia, and has lived in (6) ______ northern

hemisphere and (7) ______ southern hemisphere, as well as on (8) ______ equator. She has

never been to (9) _______ Philippines or (10) ________ United States, but she speaks

(11) ________ English, French and Portuguese. Like Sherlock Holmes, (12) _______ famous

detective, she plays (13) _______ violin, and sometimes practises up to five times (14) ________

day. She is also (15) _______ only person in (16) ________ world to have performed

Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture [a long piece of music] in one breath on (17) ________ recorder. She

has been (18) ________ detective for thirty years and claims that although many people think that

being (19) _______ detective is (20) ________ piece of cake, detectives generally work very hard

and it’s not all fun and games. (21) ________ detective is someone who solves mysteries, and

(22) _______ people who contact Ms Parrot have some very unusual problems. Little information is

available about some of (23) _______ cases she has solved, but quite (24) _______ few of her

most famous cases have attracted worldwide attention and she has been offered up to (25) _____

thousand dollars (26) _______ hour to help solve mysteries such as (27) _______ case of

(28) _______ Australian owl in (29) _______ uniform. (30) _______ bird laid (31) ______ egg in

(32) _______ European nest in less than (33) _______ hour after its arrival. What (34) ________

strange problem! With great (35) ________ modesty, she has either declined such (36) ________
fee or donated (37) _______ money to (38) ________ poor, or to (39) ________ Grammar Survival

Fund, believing that (40) _______ detective should use their skills for (41) _______ common good.