She is ( a, the, an ) girl.

Question

I have recently given my students a test that involved article usage.

Here is an example :

She is ( a, the, an ) girl.

I told my students that there are two correct answers and that the test is confusing. Some teachers disagreed with me saying that they should pick the most common answer and the others are incorrect.
Most correct answer. She is a girl.
I think She is the girl is also correct although not as common and it would not be right to mark them incorrect. I read that this is called a principle clause and can be used as a simple sentence. Also I should mention that no context was given. The question was as given above.

I am not experienced at teaching grammar, so I am just curious as to what is the correct way I should deal with this kind of test in the future.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

Hi sawman, Welcome to English Forums.

Exercises which direct the student to pick the single best answer are more popular than they used to be. I was always inclined to accept any answer which was reasonably correct.

Of coures, in you example, only "She is an girl" is incorrect. This issue comes up in all subjects, not just in grammar.

The trend is to encourage students to think outside the box, by making choices that one correct answer is better than another correct answer. There's an important place for both types of exercises. The important thing is to make sure the test directions make it absolutely clear which type of answer you expect, which you claim to have done.

In answer to the question, "Is this the girl you were telling me about?" - "She is the girl" is clearly the best answer. "She is an girl" is grammatically incorrect. "She is a girl" is grammatically correct and is probably a true statement, but it doesn't answer the question.

In answer to the question, "What is the gender of your new friend?" "She is the girl" would be a bit absurd.

But as your example stands, with no context, "the girl" and "a girl" are equally correct.

Your coleagues' objections would be like asking "Which is more correct? 4-cylinder engines, 12-cylinder engines, or 15-cylinder engines? - and then arguing that 4-cyl. is more correct than 12-cyl. because they are more common.

Best wishes, - A.

Sawman · Answer

Thank you for the reply.

Also do you think I handled the class situation correctly? I am thinking in the future to write at the top of the test paper ' Choose the most correct answer '

Mister Micawber · Answer

.
Avangi said that the and a are equally correct. Neither can be considered 'more correct' without further context. Most tests expect students to choose one correct answer, and in that case such wooly questions should be weeded out or the distractors changed to ones that cannot work in the sentence: She is (a, an, not) girl.

There are also tests that ask for the 'most appropriate' answer, and these can be challenging for higher level students with a good set of distractors, but at the level you are evidently teaching, this type would be unfair to most of your students. 'Correct' is essentially a non-gradable adjective: you cannot really be 'a little correct' or 'a lot correct'.
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Avangi · Answer

In my opinion, you did the right thing. Only you know what lesson you're trying to teach your students. (I believe that was Alfred North Whitehead's point of view.) Unfortunately we're now forced to teach to the tests.
I think it's a valuable life lesson to learn that there are these two approaches, and that each has it's place. Students need to learn that we're sometimes in a different game with different rules.

BTW, I didn't mean to say that "She is the girl" is the most correct answer. I meant to say that without context, they're equally correct. But there's more occasion to use "a girl" than "the girl." I also meant to give two different contexts, one favoring each choice.
There are really two independent things working here. (1) A being used more than B is quite a different thing from A being more correct than B. But you can certainly say that "a girl" would probably turn out to be the correct choice in more cases than would "the girl."
(2) The other thing is that when you add context, there are going to be cases in which "a girl" is wrong, and cases in which "the girl" is wrong.

She is ( a, the, an ) girl.

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