Please complete the following exercise using a/an/the/0 (no article) in the underlined spaces where appropriate. Change capital
letters to lower case letters at the beginning of a sentence if necessary.
Ms Parrot, (1) most famous lady detective of (2) twenty-first century, was born in (3) United Kingdom in (4) 1960s. Since then, she has been to many countries, including (5) Portugal, Singapore and Australia, and has lived in (6) northern hemisphere and (7) southern hemisphere, as well as on (8) equator. She has never been to (9) Philippines or (10) United States, but she speaks (11) English, French and Portuguese. Like Sherlock Holmes,(12) famous detective, she plays (13) violin, and sometimes practises up to five times (14) day. She is also (15) only person in (16) world to have performed Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture [a long piece of music] in one breath on (17) recorder.
She has been (18) detective for thirty years and claims that although many people think that being (19) detective is (20) piece of cake, detectives generally work very hard and it’s not all fun and games. (21) detective is someone who solves mysteries, and (22) people who contact Ms Parrot have some very unusual problems. Little information is available about some of (23) cases she has solved, but quite (24) few of her most famous cases have attracted worldwide attention and she has been offered up to (25) thousand dollars (26) hour to help solve mysteries such as (27) case of (28) Australian owl in (29)
uniform. (30) bird laid (31) egg in (32) European nest in less than (33) hour after its arrival. What (34) strange problem!
With great (35) modesty, she has either declined such (36) fee or donated (37) money to (38) poor, or to (39) Grammar Survival Fund, believing that (40) detective should use their skills for (41) common good.
