Uncountable Nouns Exercises
Practise uncountable nouns in English: information, advice, furniture, luggage, equipment and news. 20 free questions with instant answers and explanations. B1.
How this works
Some English nouns cannot be counted, and the language is strict about what follows.
An uncountable noun takes no "a" or "an", never adds a plural -s, and always takes a singular verb. So: "information is useful", not "informations are useful" or "an information". The same applies to advice, furniture, luggage, baggage, equipment, news, research, homework, feedback, progress, knowledge, traffic, accommodation, machinery and software.
When you need to count them, you count a container or a unit instead. A piece of information. A piece of advice. An item of furniture. A bag of luggage. Two pieces of equipment. A bit of news. "Some" works for all of them and is what most people actually say: some information, some advice, some furniture.
The trap is that several of these are countable in other languages and in a few of them the equivalent word is even usually plural - which is exactly why "informations" and "advices" appear so reliably in English written by speakers of those languages.
Two more worth knowing. "News" ends in s and is still singular: "the news is good", never "the news are good". And a handful of nouns are countable and uncountable with different meanings: "hair" is uncountable for all of it and countable for individual strands; "paper" is uncountable as material and countable as a newspaper or an exam.
Why this trips up Indian English speakers
This is the article error that shows up most in writing rather than speech, and it is worth fixing before any written round of a placement process.
The frequent ones are informations, advices, equipments, furnitures, luggages and feedbacks - all six uncountable in English, all six regularly pluralised. "Please share your valuable feedbacks" and "kindly provide the necessary informations" are so common in Indian business email that they read as normal, and to a British or American reader they are immediately noticeable.
The cause is straightforward. Hindi and several other Indian languages treat the equivalent nouns as countable, so the plural feels natural and English gives no signal that it is wrong - the sentence is perfectly clear either way.
The fix is a short list, not a rule. Learn these ten and you have covered nearly all of it: information, advice, equipment, furniture, luggage, feedback, news, research, homework, progress. None of them ever takes -s, none of them ever takes "a", and all of them take a singular verb. When you need to count, use "a piece of" or just "some".
20 questions
All 20 questions are below, with the rule explained above. Turn on JavaScript to work through them one at a time and check each answer as you go.
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Fix this sentence: Kindly share the necessary informations with the team.
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One of these nouns has no plural.
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Can you give me _____ advice about which course to take?
You cannot say "an" here.
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The news about the results _____ (be) very encouraging.
It ends in s, but is it plural?
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Fix this sentence: We bought some new furnitures for the office.
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Uncountable nouns have no plural form.
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She gave me _____ piece of advice that changed everything.
The article goes with "piece", not with "advice".
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How much _____ (luggage) are you carrying?
No plural, even after "how much".
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Which sentence uses "information" correctly?
Two things to check: the plural, and the quantifier.
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Fix this sentence: Please send your valuable feedbacks by Friday.
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A very common one in business email.
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The lab has _____ (be) some new equipment installed this month.
Think about what the sentence is saying happened.
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I have too much _____ (homework) to finish tonight.
No s, and note the quantifier.
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How _____ money do you need for the trip?
Money cannot be counted; notes and coins can.
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Fix this sentence: The traffics in Bangalore are very bad in the evening.
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Two things to fix: the noun and the verb.
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She is doing _____ (research) on renewable energy.
No article and no plural.
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We have made good _____ (progress) since the last meeting.
This one never takes an s either.
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Which sentence uses "news" correctly?
It looks plural and it is not.
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Could I have _____ information about your courses, please?
Not "an", and not a plural.
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Fix this sentence: He gave me two advices about the interview.
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You need a unit word to count this.
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Arrange the words into a correct sentence.
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The article belongs to the unit word.
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There _____ (be) a lot of traffic on the road this morning.
What is the subject, really?
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How _____ items of luggage are you checking in?
What is actually being counted here?
Now say it out loud
Getting it right in a gap is not the same as getting it right while you are talking. That is the gap this whole site exists to close, and it takes sixty seconds.
Ask a colleague for help using three of these nouns correctly: advice, information and feedback. Say each sentence out loud, and make sure none of them ends in an s.
Common questions
Is "informations" ever correct?
No. Information is uncountable in English and has no plural form at all. Say "some information", "a piece of information" or "a lot of information". The same applies to advice, equipment, furniture, luggage and feedback - none of them ever takes an s.
How do I count uncountable nouns?
Use a unit word in front: a piece of information, a piece of advice, an item of furniture, a bag of luggage, two pieces of equipment, a bit of news. In everyday speech "some" is more common and always safe: some information, some advice, some furniture.
Is "news" singular or plural?
Singular, despite the s. "The news is good", "the news was surprising", "here is the news". "The news are" is always wrong. Mathematics, physics and economics behave the same way - they look plural and take a singular verb.