N F f ti ue. A: Wait! Don't throw your coffee cup in the bin. B: Why not? A: Well, if' a lot of / a little people throw away the
ir coffee cups, it makes 2 a few / lots of rubbish. B: I only drink ' a little / a few coffees in the week. That's not much / many coffee cups. A: Yes, but I read in an article that people throw away 7 million coffee cups every day in the UK! B: That is 5 a lot / a little! A: I know. The article says that some / any businesses now have new recycling bins for h S. a fr 1 3 ar coffee cups.
A: Wait! Don't throw your coffee cup in the bin. B: Why not? A: Well, if a lot of people throw away their coffee cups, it makes lots of rubbish. B: I only drink a few coffees in the week. That's not many coffee cups. A: Yes, but I read in an article that people throw away 7 million coffee cups every day in the UK! B: That is a lot! A: I know. The article says that some businesses now have new recycling bins for coffee cups.
Explanation:
The first option is "a lot of" because A is trying to stop B from throwing the coffee cup to reduce the rubbish. As a consequence of throwing a lot of coffee cups, people make lots of rubbish, in other words, large amounts of it.
Speaker A is trying to justify that he does not make a lot of rubbish because he only drinks a few coffees. We use a few with countable nouns and a little with uncountable nouns. As speaker A says that he drinks a certain number of this drink (coffee), it is a countable noun, so we have to use a few.
"Much" is for uncountable nouns, while "many" is for countable and plural nouns. Coffee cups are something that we can count. It is a countable noun, so we choose many.
Seven million cups is a large number, so we choose a lot to indicate this. Besides, a little is for uncountable nouns, and in this case, we can count the number of coffee cups (7 million).
We use "some" in affirmative sentences and "any" in negative sentences and questions. In this case, "The article says that some businesses now have new recycling bins for coffee cups." is an affirmative sentence, so we choose some.
