The following sentence has been divided into four segments. Identify the segment in which the article has been used INCORRECTLY. Master Sam / is a heaviest / boy in / grade twelve.
- (a)Master Sam
- (b)grade twelve.
- (c)is a heaviest
- (d)boy in
Answer
Why
Correct — C. The segment reads "is a heaviest", and heaviest is a superlative picking out one member of a named group — the boys in grade twelve. A superlative used that way takes the, so a heaviest is wrong.
Corrected: Master Sam is the heaviest boy in grade twelve.
There is also a mechanical route to option (c). Run through the four segments and only this one contains an article at all, and a segment with no article cannot carry an article error.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)Master Sam — Master Sam is a title with a proper noun and takes no article. There is no article in this segment to be used incorrectly.
- (b)grade twelve. — grade twelve names a class the way a label does, and English uses no article with it. Nothing here can be the article error.
- (d)boy in — boy in is a noun and a preposition, with no article of its own. The article that belongs to boy sits back in the previous segment, which is where the error is.
Concept
An article-error item splits a sentence into four labelled segments and asks which one misuses a, an or the. Start mechanically: find the segments that contain an article, because the rest cannot be the answer.
The rule under test here is the superlative rule. The goes before an -est superlative that identifies one member of a group — the tallest boy, the best result, the heaviest boy in grade twelve — because identification is exactly what the definite article marks.
A and an do the opposite job: they mark one of several. That is why a heaviest, inside a named group, contradicts itself.
The question asks only about articles. A segment can read oddly for some other reason and still be the wrong answer, so resist correcting anything the instruction did not ask you to correct.
One honest exception to the rule: the intensifying superlative does take a — 'a most interesting book' means a very interesting one, not the single most interesting one. That sense is not open to an -est form such as heaviest.
Key facts
- An -est superlative that picks out one member of a named group takes the: the heaviest boy in grade twelve, not a heaviest boy.
- The corrected sentence reads: Master Sam is the heaviest boy in grade twelve.
- A segment containing no article at all cannot be the answer to an article-error question.
Study next
Common traps
- Picking a segment that simply reads awkwardly when the question asks only about articles.
- Missing a heaviest because the eye recognises the familiar shape of a heavy boy.
- Over-correcting grade twelve to the grade twelve, which English does not require.
SSC repeats this instruction line verbatim with a different article rule underneath — also asked 17 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.5, keyed on "strengthen an intellectual", and 25 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.10, keyed on "as a major contributor to an industry revenue".
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