others/the others

[diamondcutter]

The classroom was very noisy. Some students were studying, but _______ were talking and laughing.

This is a test question. Because there’s no more context. I think ‘others’ and ‘the others’ are both OK for the blank. What do you say?

 

[jutfrank]

The missing word is others.

 

[diamondcutter]

Thanks, Jutfrank.

I wonder if you could tell me why the missing word can’t be “the others”. Let’s suppose there were 20 students in the classroom. Ten students were studying and ten were talking and laughing. I wonder if I could say this:

Some (ten) students are studying, and the others (ten) are talking and laughing.

 

[emsr2d2]

That's a terrible question, in my opinion. You could put any of the following in the blank:

others
the others
some
many
most
too many
far too many
the majority

 

[GoodTaste]

That's a terrible question, in my opinion. You could put any of the following in the blank:

others
the others
some
many
most
too many
far too many
the majority

My first reaction for the OP is "the rest of the class" - would this work there naturally?

 

[jutfrank]

I wonder if you could tell me why the missing word can’t be “the others”.

There's no reason to include the.

To put this simply, you can make the following pairs of quantifiers to make general reference to the students:

some students
other students

If you want to make special reference to the students, you can use the, but you should do it in both noun phrases, like this:

some of the students
the other students

The problem with your answer is that it produces an unnecessary mix.

 

[diamondcutter]

That's a terrible question, in my opinion. You could put any of the following in the blank:

others
the others
some
many
most
too many
far too many
the majority

There's no reason to include the.

To put this simply, you can make the following pairs of quantifiers to make general reference to the students:

some students
other students

If you want to make special reference to the students, you can use the, but you should do it in both noun phrases, like this:

some of the students
the other students

The problem with your answer is that it produces an unnecessary mix.

Thanks, Emsr2d2 and Jutfrank.

I wonder if I could take what Emsr2d2 has said as a loose guideline and take what Jutfrank has said as a strict guideline. In spoken English, we could follow Emsr2d2’s guideline and in written English, we should follow Jutfrank’s guideline.

 

[GoesStation]

All of emsr2d2's suggestions are fine in writing or in speech as far as I'm concerned.

 

[jutfrank]

I wonder if I could take what Emsr2d2 has said as a loose guideline and take what Jutfrank has said as a strict guideline. In spoken English, we could follow Emsr2d2’s guideline and in written English, we should follow Jutfrank’s guideline.

No, I didn't mean to provide you with any strict guidelines. I was just trying to tell you why the answer is other, not the other. That is, I was trying to tell you what the person who wrote the question was trying to get you to put as the answer.

As far as I understand, the only place where emsr2d2 and I disagree is on the quality of the question. She's right of course that the other is a possible/grammatical/natural answer but there is typically only one correct answer to this kind of test question, and there is no good reason to choose the other over other.

If the test instruction is for you to select all possible answers, then I'm mistaken.

 

[emsr2d2]

I agree that the question setters are looking for just one answer but the problem is that there are several possible correct answers. I also agree that "others" is more likely than "the others", but "some", "most" and "many" are equally possible and likely. That's what makes it a poor question, in my opinion. If a student wrote one of my suggestions and it was marked wrong, that would be extremely unfair.