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jasonlulu_2000
Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 879
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 Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 5:17 pm Post subject: pressure |
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It�s quite obvious that the aging population in this country will cause ______heavy pressure on ______ whole society in the future.
A. a; the B. /; the
Which is better? Why?
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dragn
Joined: 17 Feb 2009
Posts: 450
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| Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 1:34 am Post subject: |
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It�s quite obvious that the aging population in this country will cause ______heavy pressure on ______ whole society in the future.
A. a; the B. /; the
Which is better? Why? |
Answer (B) /; the is not just better; it's correct. Pressure here is uncountable, so (A) a; the is wrong. The word pressure can be used in a countable way, but it's uncountable here. No native speaker I know would interpret it as being countable here. We virtually never refer to a pressure.
A few examples where we might use pressure in the countable sense might be sentences like the following:
The pressures of university life can be overwhelming for a beginning freshman.
The pressures of his new job caused Bob to start suffering from headaches and a loss of sleep.
In such examples, it's easy and natural to think of the many individual things that contribute to the overall pressure. However, notice that even though pressure is countable here, we still don't say a pressure.
Hope this helps.
Greg |
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jasonlulu_2000
Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 879
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| Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:02 am Post subject: OK |
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| I got it. |
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