other

Billy is more popular than ___ in the class. (A) all other (B) all the boys (C) all the others (D) all other boys


D is the right answer. But I am not sure how I can explain it.

A: 'All others' not 'all other'
B: Since Billy is a boy, it would be okay to say 'any of the girls'
C: You are not comparing Billy to any specifi

Interesting. I would choose C; but D seems fine too.

My preferred answer would be:

E: any other boy

MrP

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/student/viewtopic.php?p=53056#53056

Hi,

Billy is more popular than ___ in the class. (A) all other (B) all the boys (C) all the others (D) all other boys

If I may be a little contrary, this kind of exercise expects you to make assumptions about the context and expects you to make the assumption the tester expects. If you assume Billy is not in the class, then B is fine.

To judge by the diversity of responses, it seems to be another case of "poorly constructed question".

MrP

Hello Teo

Thanks for the link.

The poster called Alan states that

1. New York is bigger than all other cities in the US.

is more informal than

2. New York is bigger than all the other cities in the US.

I can think of no justification for this opinion. It seems to me that both are equally grammatical; and both might be found either in f

"other cities" is the indefinite plural. "the other cities" is the definite plural.
Since, theoretically, we can list "the other cities" (in the example at hand), i.e., at least somebody knows which cities they are, i.e., can 'define' them, make them 'definite', "the" seems to be the theoretically correct choice.
On the other hand, presenting "other cities" as indefinite, i.