Today we had a slightly boring but very important class in which we learned more about the use of articles.
One important point: there are three ways to generalize for complex units such as devices, animals, bodily organs, etc.
THE The lion is the deadliest predator in Africa.
A/AN A lion is the deadliest predator in Africa. (point--using an indefinite article has to make sense. For example, in class, we saw that we could not say "A whale is the largest mammal in the world" because this is not true of ALL whales, or may not be true of any that we choose at random. For example, baby whales, killer whales, etc. might be smaller than elephants or giraffes. ) Be careful in using this technique--it requires knowledge and good judgement!
(plural) Lions are the deadliest predators in Africa.
For homework, please do Exercise 7 of Focus 4 (p92-3).
Also, please do exercises 1-4 in the handout that I gave you today. Sorry, I can't reproduce it here, but as everyone was in class today, it should not be a problem.
Exercise 4 is a bit tricky and will be time consuming, but do your best and we''ll go over it in detail tomorrow. I'll give you a copy of the answers, as well as your usual study sheet.
As always, thanks for your great questions and comments!
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