We wanted to sit _____ the front of the plane.

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sitifan

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Joined
Dec 30, 2006
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Retired English Teacher
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Chinese
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Taiwan
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We wanted to sit _____ the front of the plane. (in/on/at)
Source:

The answer is "at." Is "in" also correct?
 
The image linked to is ‘not available’.

What’s your point?
 
I suspect you're going to find a difference between BrE and AmE with this one. As a Brit, I always sit at the back of the bus, at the front of the plane etc. I believe an AmE speaker might sit in the back of the bus, in the front of the plane. I might even have heard something like "Let's sit in back".

On WR, an AmE speaker says that "in the back of the bus" would simply refer to anywhere from the middle row of seats to the last row, but "at the back of the bus" would refer to the last row, or perhaps the penultimate row.
 
I say they're both right but that they have different meanings. If you sit in the front of the plane, you mean you're in the front section. You're thinking of the front section as a container.
 
The image linked to is ‘not available’.
Source: Cambridge Learner's Dictionary with CD-ROM
By Cambridge University Press, page 291.
 
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