NDA (II) 2016 General Ability Test · Question 9 of 150

Correct — C, 'against his own queen.' That is the segment the official Series-A key marks, and the fault it points to belongs to the object phrase which this segment completes. English treats 'evidence' as an uncountable noun, so the phrase cannot be built as 'evidences against his own queen'; corrected, the sentence reads 'The king was embarrassed to find evidence against his own queen.' Mark (c) as the key does, and carry away the rule about 'evidence' — the printed plural sits in segment (b), which is why this item divides opinion.

• (a)The king was embarrassed — Error-free — a straightforward past construction, and 'embarrassed to find' is a normal pattern of adjective plus to-infinitive.
• (b)to find evidences — This is where the printed plural falls, and it is the segment most practice books mark when they reprint the sentence, since 'evidence' has no plural in its legal sense. The key that actually scored the paper marks segment (c) instead; the correction to be made is the same either way — 'to find evidence'.
• (d)No error. — The sentence cannot stand as printed, because 'evidences' is not a standard form in this sense.

'Evidence' is an uncountable noun in modern standard English. One speaks of much evidence, little evidence and a piece of evidence, but not of two evidences.

It is worth being straight about this item, because it divides opinion. The visible fault is the plural 'evidences', and that plural is printed inside segment (b); the official Series-A key nevertheless gives the answer as (c), the rest of the same object phrase. We author to the key, because the key is what scored the paper — and the takeaway does not change with the letter. Write 'evidence against him', never 'evidences'. It is also worth knowing why the plural can look tempting. Older and more formal English does use 'evidences' for outward signs or tokens, a use preserved in the old title 'Evidences of Christianity', but in the courtroom sense the word carries here it stays uncountable.

• 'Evidence' takes 'much', 'little' and 'a piece of', not 'many' and not a number.
• To count instances, English says 'two pieces of evidence' or 'two items of evidence'.
• Other uncountable nouns examiners test are information, furniture, luggage, advice, machinery and equipment.

• Writing 'evidences', 'informations' or 'furnitures' by analogy with ordinary plurals.
• Assuming an answer key must always land on the segment carrying the visible slip.

Asked as an error-spotting item — name the segment that carries the mistake, or mark 'No error.'

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which segment carries the error — (a) The police collected / (b) many evidences / (c) from the scene. / (d) No error

  • (a)The police collected
  • (b)many evidences
  • (c)from the scene.
  • (d)No error

  Answer(b) many evidences — 'evidence' is uncountable, so it reads 'a great deal of evidence' or 'many pieces of evidence'.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Fill the blank — The officer gave us some useful ________ about the route.

  • (a)informations
  • (b)information
  • (c)an information
  • (d)informative

  Answer(b) information — the noun is uncountable, so it has no plural and takes no article of that kind.