Articles. “The” and “A”.

THE A
Used with countable and uncountable nouns Used with singular countable nouns

1. To talk about something which has already been
mentioned.
We caught a robber yesterday. The robber is now in
hospital.
2. To talk about things which are unique.
The earth moves around the sun.
2 To talk about something we both know we’re talking
about.
Have you fed the cat yet? (our cat)
I went to the shop (we know which shop)
1. To talk about something for the first time, not known to
the listener.
We caught a robber yesterday. The robber is now in
hospital.
2. To talk about something general
I’m thinking of buying a car. (we don’t know which car)
3. To talk about a type or example of something.
Leeds United is a premier league team.
4. To talk about quantities of uncountable nouns.
We bought a kilo of coffee.

We don’t use an article before most places (I’m from Libya, I live in Ras Lanuf), names (My name is Nasser), meals (We have
dinner at the canteen), days, and months (on Tuesday, In January), talking generally about things or using gerunds (television
is interesting, swimming is fun).

Choose the correct form of the English articles: a, an, the or z (= zero)

1. He is acting as ________ manager until they appoint ______ new one.

2. ________ football team I like _______ most is __________ Leeds United.
3. All ________ employees in RASCO have ________ badge number.
4. After ________ 2010 _________ smart phones started to be used by __________ growing number of people.
5. _________ TV station I watch _________ most is _______Libyan one called _____ Al Masar.
.
This is a model answer (with top marks!) for an essay with “the” and “a” removed. Decide which one fits best.

Every country in the world has problems with pollution and damage to _______ environment.
Do you think these problems can be solved?

If we surf ____ web looking for pollution and environmental catastrophes, we will find out that every country in ____ world
suffers them. This is _____ natural consequence of ______ struggle between development and environment.

If _____ country decided to live isolated from _____ rest of _____ world, living on what it can naturally grow and produce, it
surely wouldn’t be highly polluted. But we all want exotic food and technological items from all over _____ world, so we have
to pay _____ price.

Investing in electrical transport would benefit _____ environment a lot. Even more if this electricity came from ____ natural
source of energy like wind, rivers and solar panels. It’s difficult to achieve this because making _____ real change needs
careful planning and _____ lot of time.

We also have to take care of _____ seas. We all have heard about factories throwing highly toxic substances in rivers, without
minimising their effects. ______ really strict law should be applied to fine these factories and make them change ______
policies that they have.

But what about ourselves? When we go to buy food at ______ shops, we can buy larger packs to reduce ______ amount of
packaging that we use. Although problems with _____ environment happen everywhere, we can do ______ lot to reduce
______ effects that they can cause.