General or Specific
A crowd you cannot point at, and one group you can.
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If you can point at it, it takes "the". If you cannot, it does not.
Society, culture, community, tradition: the words in every social-topic essay, their forms, and when they need 'the'.
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Six pairs. The only difference is one word: the.
Which sentence is correct?
The eight families every social-topic essay needs — and the one article rule that comes with them.
These eight families turn up in every social-topic Task 2 — and the questions are almost always social topics. Society, culture, community, tradition, the individual, the public, personal life, responsibility.
So you need the forms. But you also need something else, because these particular words carry an article problem that other families do not.
A crowd you cannot point at, and one group you can.
If you can point at it, it takes "the". If you cannot, it does not.
Eight forms, eight gaps. Each form fits exactly one.
Terms
Definitions
Three decisions, each in two steps: pick the form, then decide about "the".
Chain 1
Sentence: Social media has changed ______ faster than any law could.
Family: society / social / socially
Step 1 — the gap is what has been changed, so the form is:
Step 2 — general or one specific group? It is people everywhere, so the article is:
Chain 2
Sentence: ______ I grew up in expected everyone to marry young.
Family: society / social / socially
Step 1 — the form is the same word as before:
Step 2 — but "I grew up in" identifies WHICH one, so the article is:
Chain 3
Sentence: Governments are ______ for protecting ______ health.
Family: responsible / responsibility · public
Step 1 — after "are" the first gap needs:
Step 2 — the second gap describes the kind of health, and this word never changes shape, so it is:
One Task 2 paragraph, eight gaps. Two of them are about "the", not the form.
Should communities preserve old customs?
Modern technology has changed more in thirty years than in the previous three hundred. (society — one or two words) Many older customs no longer fit the way people live, and some have quietly disappeared. This is often described as a loss. (culture)
However, where I grew up still holds a festival every spring. (community — one or two words) It was a harvest celebration, though almost nobody there farms now. (tradition)
The question is who should decide. If every chooses alone, shared customs disappear within a generation. (individual) If governments decide, they take for something that belongs to families rather than to the state. (responsible)
, I believe the answer is neither. (person) Customs survive when they are practised and quietly, not when they are protected by law. (society)