The honeybee is a very unusual kind of insect. _____ (46) other insects which live alone, the honeybee lives as a/an _____ (47) of a community. These bees live together in what is known as a bee _____ (48) The head of the bees is called the queen bee. She is _____ (49) than the rest of the bees. Her main task is to _____ (50) eggs. the honeybee lives as a/an _____ of a community.
- (a)group
- (b)individual
- (c)member
- (d)troop
Correct — C, member. The subject is 'the honeybee', a single insect, and the printed frame is 'a/an _____ of a community', so the blank needs the word for one unit that belongs to a group. That word is 'member', and it also delivers the contrast just drawn, since other insects live alone while this one lives as one of many.
- (a)group — A group is made up of members, so a single honeybee cannot be one, and a group is not something an insect lives 'as' inside a community.
- (b)individual — An individual is a single being considered on its own, which brings back the solitariness the sentence is denying, and the natural phrasing would be 'an individual in a community' rather than 'of' one.
- (d)troop — A troop is a collective noun used of soldiers and of some animals such as monkeys, so like 'group' it names many rather than one, and it is not used of bees.
A cloze item asking for the word that names a single belonging unit of a larger body.
Notice that the paper prints 'a/an' instead of choosing the article, and that is deliberate. Normally the article would give the answer away, since only 'individual' begins with a vowel sound. With both forms offered, the article is no help and the meaning has to decide. The words 'of a community' are the real clue, because what stands in a part-to-whole relation with a community is a member.
- 'Member of' is the standard part-to-whole phrase, as in 'a member of the team' or 'a member of the family'.
- A honeybee colony contains one queen, a great many female workers and a number of male drones, so each bee is one member of a much larger household.
- Choosing a collective noun where the sentence needs the name for a single unit.
Asked as a cloze item in which three of the four options name a group and only one names a single belonging unit.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that fits — After two years of training she became a full _____ of the mountaineering club.
- (a)group
- (b)member
- (c)troop
- (d)crowd
Answer(b) member — one person belonging to a larger body.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Choose the word that fits — Every _____ of the crew was accounted for after the storm.
- (a)team
- (b)fleet
- (c)member
- (d)squad
Answer(c) member — 'every' needs a singular unit, not another collective noun.