Question

Fill in the Blank.

For safety concerns, the nuclear detonator has been designed to have ______ so that two individuals can separately handle them.

• A. two equipments pieces
• B. two pieces of equipment
• C. two pieces of equipments
• D. two equipments

Hint:

Remember that "equipment" is an uncountable noun and has no plural form.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

This question tests how the word "equipment" behaves as a noun. "Equipment" is an uncountable noun in English, so it never takes a direct plural form like "equipments". To count uncountable nouns, we use a counting phrase like "piece of" or "pieces of" in front of them.

1. two equipments pieces: This wrongly pluralizes "equipment" and also places the counting word "pieces" in the wrong order. Both mistakes make this incorrect.
2. two pieces of equipment: This correctly uses the counting phrase "pieces of" before the uncountable noun "equipment", which stays in its singular form. This is grammatically correct.
3. two pieces of equipments: The counting phrase is placed correctly, but "equipment" is wrongly pluralized to "equipments" even though it already follows "pieces of". This is incorrect.
4. two equipments: This directly pluralizes an uncountable noun, which is not allowed in standard English. This is incorrect.

The correct phrase is "two pieces of equipment", since "equipment" stays uncountable and the quantity is shown using "pieces of" in front of it.

Let's summarize:

• "Equipment" is uncountable, so it has no plural form like "equipments".
• To count uncountable nouns, use "piece(s) of" before the noun, and keep the noun itself singular.

So the correct choice to fill the blank is "two pieces of equipment", making option (b) the correct answer.