In the following passage, some words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the most appropriate option to fill in each blank. Recently, the (1)________ of heart-attacks in young Indians (2)________ increased tremendously. Doctors are surprised to note that young men and women with seemingly healthy lifestyle are suffering deadly heart attacks. (3)________ diet and exercise play a (4)________ role in a person’s overall wellbeing, mental health is also a valuable factor. The (5)________ urban lifestyle is causing anxiety and depression in young Indians which may be a major factor behind the increased numbers.
Select the most appropriate option to fill in blank number 1.
- (a)number
- (b)percent
- (c)height
- (d)amount
Answer
Why
Correct — A. The blank counts heart-attacks, a plural countable noun, and the quantity word English uses with countables is number.
'The number of heart-attacks in young Indians' then becomes the subject, with number as its head — which is what makes blank 2 singular, 'has increased'.
Of the four options, only number can head a plural count noun like this → option (a).
Why the others are wrong
- (b)percent — Percent needs a figure in front of it — 'twenty percent of heart-attacks'. After 'the', English uses the noun 'percentage', not 'percent'.
- (c)height — Height measures how tall or how extreme something is, as in 'the height of summer'. It cannot head a count of events.
- (d)amount — Amount goes with uncountable nouns — the amount of water, of time, of money. Heart-attacks are counted one by one, so they take 'number'.
Concept
English sorts its quantity words by countability. Things you can count take number, many and fewer; mass nouns take amount, much and less.
'Heart-attacks' is printed as a plural, so the countable set applies and the blank has to hold number.
The choice also settles the next blank. 'The number' is singular, so the verb agrees in the singular even though a plural noun stands between the two.
This is a cloze, and the five blanks are not independent of one another.
What you put in blank 1 fixes what blank 2's verb has to agree with, so a wrong quantifier here costs a second mark two words later.
Key facts
- Number goes with countable nouns and amount goes with uncountable ones.
- After 'the', the noun for a proportion is percentage, as in 'the percentage of students'.
- In 'the number of X', the head of the subject is 'number', which is singular.
- Fewer pairs with countables and less with uncountables, the same split as number and amount.
Study next
Common traps
- Choosing 'amount' because a health statistic feels like a bulk quantity rather than a set of events
- Treating percent and percentage as interchangeable
- Filling blank 1 without checking that blank 2's verb can agree with what you chose
SSC deletes five words from a short passage and grades each blank on its own, but the blanks lean on one another: here blank 1 decides what blank 2 must agree with.
A cloze settled the same way, by word class rather than by meaning, is at 12 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.24, where the noun 'dishonesty' is keyed over the adverbs 'horribly' and 'badly' because the slot sits parallel to the noun 'Honesty'.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.