Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[puzzle]

Dear teachers,
The use of the article is sometimes confusing.Can you explain the folowing two sentences, thank you!
1. China has made a promise that the Beijing Olympic Games will be a green sports event.
2. From wht we discussed above , we can safely draw the conclusion that...
What's the differences between the underlined parts of the two sentences? "make a promise"&"draw a conclusion" are both set phrses , why does one use "a" while the other use "the"?Are they both right?
Thank you again!

[obelix]

1.Probably it means that it is just one of the promises that China has made.
It would be better written like this:- China has promised that the Beijing Olympics will be "green".

2. From what we discussed above we can conclude that...

You should try to avoid nominalization when there is a perfectly good verb that means the same thing.
e.g. Draw the conclusion (three words) = conclude (one word).
Made a promise (three words) = promise (one word).

[puzzle]

but i really want to know which on earth is correct?Because this is an exercise in a test. Thank you!