Grammar: Articles & Apostrophes Part 1: Articles The Indefinite Article The indefinite article marks a non-specific singular noun. In other words, a/an is used to refer to a singular (not plural) common noun in a general way. A student is waiting in your office could be any student) I ate a piece of pizza for dinner could be any kind of pizza, but not a specific pizza) A shark is a dangerous creature in the sea (the whole shark species, not one specific shark) Use the indefinite article singular count nouns; a/an is never used with plural nouns. The Definite Article The is a word that makes a noun specific or definite. It distinguishes the known from the unknown. The student from COMM1106 is waiting in your office (refers to a specific student) I ate the last piece of pizza from the extra large pie we ordered last night. The sharks in Australia sometimes attack the local surfers. No article is used in general statements with non-count and plural nouns unless the noun is made specific in some way. Water is necessary for life. (not the water) Rice is good for you. (not "the" rice) Gold is valuable and is traded on the stock market (not the gold) Instructions: Correct any misused or missing articles in the paragraph. There are 10 errors. Highest place on Earth is an mountain called Mount Everest, which is 8,850 metres high. It is located in Asia, at border of Tibet and Nepal, in a mountain range known as Himalayas. First people to climb Everest were the Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who reached peak in 1953. According to a CBC Web Site, 2,249 people climbed the Mount Everest by the end of 2004, but 186 people died trying. Now there is a small industry of guides who make a good living taking adventurous climbers to the top of Everest. Ascending the mountain is expensive proposition, though. The average cost of a guided climb is about US $65,000. That's too much money to make it to top