Manhattan Review InFocus Newsletter

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Fine-tune Your Grammar – When Not to Use Articles (A, An, and The)

There are no hard and fast rules about how to use articles accurately. During the editing process of a student’s essays, correcting these finer grammatical points is often times required. For many, it can be confusing and frustrating to try to discern when and when not to use these articles. To help you write better and improve your grammar, we summarized some basic rules about articles for your easy reference.

#1. No article is necessary before an uncountable noun which is used in an indefinite sense, i.e., in a non-unique, non-specific and non-defined way.
Example: Some people prefer water to coffee every morning.

“The” is necessary before an uncountable noun which is used in a definite sense.
Example: The water in this town is famous for its purity.

Never use “a” or “an” before an uncountable noun.
Example (incorrect): a happiness

#2. No article is necessary before a plural noun which is used in an indefinite sense.
Example A: Do you have siblings?
Example B: There are stars in the sky.

#3. No article is necessary before the names of streets, avenues, roads, lanes, or boulevard.
Example: I live on Eighth Ave. We are at Main Street.

#4. No “the” is necessary after some, most, all, many, much, and there is/are. But “the” is necessary if preceded by some of, most of, all of, many of, much of. Prepositional phrases with “of” makes a noun definite. Therefore “the” is used.
Example: Many people showed up yesterday. Many of the people I know showed up yesterday.

Final notes:

#1. Depending on the phrase and the meaning, the same noun can be countable in some situations and uncountable in others.
Example A: Our helicopter is running out of fuel. Gas is a fuel made from petroleum.
Example B: My sister loves cheese. Brie is a soft and rich French cheese.
Example C: Time is precious. We had a wonderful time at the holiday party.

#2. Indefinite use of noun includes the following situations: a) The noun was used as a generic reference; b) The noun was not mentioned before in the context; c) The noun was not known to the speaker as a particular item; d) The noun was not part of a phrase; and e) The noun was not defined by a phrase or clause.

We will continue our list of article rules next time.

Meantime, to master all these grammatical finer-points quickly and effectively, learn from our expert instructors real-time!

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Recent Student GMAT Score & School Admissions Report

Date: December 8, 2006

Dear Instructor,

...Thanks so much for you help! The 80 point improvement was fabulous! I wished I had hit the 700 mark, but 680 is around the 90% mark, so it should be okay...

...The Manhattan Review course not only focuses students upon solving complicated quantitative and verbal problems, but also prepares students for a range of cognitive failures that the GMAT exploits and few books address...

Sahil

(Note: This student took our 28-hour long course in London.)

Date: December 7, 2006

Since I took the GMAT preparation course with you approx. six months ago, I wanted to inform you that I got accepted at Kellogg and would like to thank you for your support.

Fabian

(Note: This student took our weekend crash course in Munich.)

Kind regards,

Manhattan Review Team

Manhattan Review US <www.manhattanreview.com>
V 212-997-1660
F 212-997-1669

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