DIRECTIONS: Choose the correct article.
____ old are respected by the young.
MP Lab Technician - 2015,
Answer: B
The article is The: 'The old are respected by the young.'
The is placed before certain adjectives to make them stand for a whole class of people: the old (old people), the young, the poor, the rich. Such phrases are plural, which is why the verb is are. The same sentence already uses this pattern in 'by the young'.
A and an are used with singular countable nouns and cannot turn an adjective into a plural class. With no article, 'Old are respected' is ungrammatical.
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