Singular and Plural Nouns – English Grammar Exercises for A1
Choose the correct option (A, B, or C) to complete each sentence.
1 Look at this holiday photo! There are fifteen ______ in my big family.
(a) peoples
(b) people
(c) persons
2 My grandparents are very happy because they have seven ______.
(a) children
(b) childs
(c) child
3 This is my uncle next to the tree. He is a very tall ______.
(a) mans
(b) men
(c) man
4 In this picture, you can see two ______ holding a newborn baby.
(a) womans
(b) woman
(c) women
5 I have a big family. There are five ______ and three boys in my house.
(a) girls
(b) girl
(c) girles
6 My older sister is holding her two small ______, a boy and a girl.
(a) baby
(b) babies
(c) babys
7 Look at the table! My aunts cooked many delicious ______ for the holiday dinner.
(a) dishes
(b) dishs
(c) dish
8 All the ______ in my family like to sit together and talk about sports.
(a) man
(b) men
(c) mens
9 We needed to bring extra ______ from the bedroom so everyone could sit down.
(a) chair
(b) chaires
(c) chairs
10 My cousin gave me a beautiful picture of our two ______.
(a) family
(b) families
(c) familys
11 The ______ playing in the garden are my little cousins.
(a) children
(b) childs
(c) childrens
12 That ______ over there in the beautiful red dress is my favorite aunt.
(a) woman
(b) women
(c) womans
13 My grandfather always tells us a lot of funny ______ about his past.
(a) story
(b) storys
(c) stories
14 We used my phone to take a lot of ______ during the holiday party.
(a) photos
(b) photoes
(c) photo
15 My uncle brought five beautiful ______ as presents for the kids.
(a) watch
(b) watches
(c) watchs
16 Look at their big smiles! The kids have very white ______.
(a) tooths
(b) tooth
(c) teeth
17 For the big family dinner, we needed to wash a lot of forks and ______.
(a) knives
(b) knifes
(c) knife
18 There is only one ______ who always arrives late to our parties, and that’s my cousin Paul.
(a) person
(b) people
(c) peoples
19 My grandmother bought two new ______ to wear for the holiday weekend.
(a) dress
(b) dresses
(c) dresss
20 After dinner, the ______ usually sit in the living room and drink tea.
(a) woman
(b) womens
(c) women
ANSWER KEY & EXPLANATIONS
1 (b) people
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (b) ‘People’ is the correct irregular plural form of ‘person’. It is used for counting groups of humans.
- Common Mistake: (c) ‘Persons’ is rarely used in everyday English (only in very formal legal contexts). A1 learners should always use ‘people’.
- Structural Error: (a) ‘Peoples’ is incorrect because ‘people’ is already plural.
2 (a) children
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (a) ‘Children’ is the correct irregular plural form of ‘child’.
- Common Mistake: (b) ‘Childs’ is a very common mistake where learners incorrectly add an ‘-s’ to an irregular noun.
- Structural Error: (c) ‘Child’ is singular, but the number “seven” requires a plural noun.
3 (c) man
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (c) ‘Man’ is the singular form. We are talking about “my uncle”, who is one person (“a very tall…”).
- Common Mistake: (b) ‘Men’ is plural. Beginners often confuse the spelling of the singular (man) and plural (men).
- Structural Error: (a) ‘Mans’ does not exist as a plural noun.
4 (c) women
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (c) ‘Women’ is the irregular plural form of ‘woman’. The number “two” requires a plural noun.
- Common Mistake: (a) ‘Womans’ is an incorrect regularized plural form.
- Structural Error: (b) ‘Woman’ is singular.
5 (a) girls
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (a) ‘Girls’ is the correct regular plural form of ‘girl’.
- Common Mistake: (c) ‘Girles’ is a spelling error.
- Structural Error: (b) ‘Girl’ is singular, but the number “five” requires a plural noun.
6 (b) babies
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (b) ‘Babies’. When a noun ends in a consonant + y (ba-b-y), we change the ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add ‘-es’.
- Common Mistake: (c) ‘Babys’ is a spelling mistake because it ignores the “-ies” rule.
- Structural Error: (a) ‘Baby’ is singular, contradicting the word “two”.
7 (a) dishes
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (a) ‘Dishes’. Nouns ending in -sh, -ch, -s, -x, or -z take ‘-es’ in the plural.
- Common Mistake: (b) ‘Dishs’ is an incorrect spelling.
- Structural Error: (c) ‘Dish’ is singular, but “many” requires a plural noun.
8 (b) men
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (b) ‘Men’ is the correct irregular plural form of ‘man’. “All the…” indicates a plural group.
- Common Mistake: (c) ‘Mens’ is a double plural mistake (adding ‘-s’ to an already plural word).
- Structural Error: (a) ‘Man’ is singular.
9 (c) chairs
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (c) ‘Chairs’ is the correct regular plural of ‘chair’.
- Common Mistake: (b) ‘Chaires’ is a spelling error. We just add ‘-s’.
- Structural Error: (a) ‘Chair’ is singular, but “extra” in this context implies more than one.
10 (b) families
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (b) ‘Families’. The noun ends in a consonant + y (fam-il-y), so we drop the ‘y’ and add ‘-ies’.
- Common Mistake: (c) ‘Familys’ is a spelling mistake.
- Structural Error: (a) ‘Family’ is singular, contradicting the number “two”.
11 (a) children
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (a) ‘Children’ is the correct irregular plural.
- Common Mistake: (c) ‘Childrens’ is a very common double-plural mistake.
- Structural Error: (b) ‘Childs’ is an incorrect regularized form.
12 (a) woman
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (a) ‘Woman’ is the correct singular noun. The sentence uses “That” and “is”, which indicate one person.
- Common Mistake: (b) ‘Women’ is plural. Learners often mix up the pronunciation and spelling of woman/women.
- Structural Error: (c) ‘Womans’ does not exist.
13 (c) stories
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (c) ‘Stories’ follows the consonant + y rule (change ‘y’ to ‘ies’).
- Common Mistake: (b) ‘Storys’ is a spelling error.
- Structural Error: (a) ‘Story’ is singular, but “a lot of” requires a plural countable noun here.
14 (a) photos
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (a) ‘Photos’. This is an exception to the ‘o’ rule. Words like photo, piano, and radio only take an ‘-s’.
- Common Mistake: (b) ‘Photoes’ is incorrect. Learners often overapply the rule for words like ‘potatoes’ or ‘tomatoes’.
- Structural Error: (c) ‘Photo’ is singular.
15 (b) watches
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (b) ‘Watches’. Nouns ending in ‘-ch’ require ‘-es’ to become plural.
- Common Mistake: (c) ‘Watchs’ is a spelling error. It is impossible to pronounce properly without the ‘e’.
- Structural Error: (a) ‘Watch’ is singular.
16 (c) teeth
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (c) ‘Teeth’ is the irregular plural form of ‘tooth’.
- Common Mistake: (a) ‘Tooths’ is an incorrect regularized form.
- Structural Error: (b) ‘Tooth’ is singular, but humans have many teeth.
17 (a) knives
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (a) ‘Knives’. For most nouns ending in ‘-fe’ or ‘-f’, we change the ‘f’ to ‘v’ and add ‘-es’.
- Common Mistake: (b) ‘Knifes’ is a spelling mistake that ignores the “-ves” rule.
- Structural Error: (c) ‘Knife’ is singular.
18 (a) person
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (a) ‘Person’ is singular. The sentence starts with “There is only one…”, so a singular noun is required.
- Common Mistake: (b) ‘People’ is plural, which contradicts “only one”.
- Structural Error: (c) ‘Peoples’ is structurally incorrect in this context.
19 (b) dresses
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (b) ‘Dresses’. Nouns ending in ‘-ss’ require ‘-es’ to become plural.
- Common Mistake: (c) ‘Dresss’ is an incorrect spelling (English words do not have three ‘s’ letters in a row).
- Structural Error: (a) ‘Dress’ is singular.
20 (c) women
Explanation: – Correct (Key): (c) ‘Women’ is the irregular plural form. “The women usually sit…” describes a group of female adults in the family.
- Common Mistake: (b) ‘Womens’ is a double plural error.
- Structural Error: (a) ‘Woman’ is singular, but the context implies a group, and the verb “sit” (without an -s) matches a plural subject.
GRAMMAR POINTS TO REMEMBER
1 Regular Plurals: For most nouns, simply add -s (e.g., girl -> girls, chair -> chairs).
2 The -ES Rule: If a noun ends in -s, -sh, -ch, -x, or -z, add -es (e.g., watch -> watches, dress -> dresses, dish -> dishes).
3 The -IES Rule: If a noun ends in a consonant + y, change the ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add -es (e.g., family -> families, baby -> babies).
4 The -VES Rule: If a noun ends in -f or -fe, change the ‘f’ to ‘v’ and add -es (e.g., knife -> knives).
5 Important Irregular Plurals: Some words change completely and NEVER take an “-s”. You must memorize these because they are very common when talking about people and family:
- 1 person -> 2 people (NOT persons)
- 1 child -> 2 children (NOT childs)
- 1 man -> 2 men (NOT mans)
- 1 woman -> 2 women (NOT womans)
- 1 tooth -> 2 teeth (NOT tooths)