<p>Hi, i encountered a writing multiple choice that puzzled me a bit, and i need some help:</p>
<p>The radio station received "the most number of" calls from listeners "on the evening" "it" aired a discussion of "the music of" Aretha Franklin. "No error"</p>
<p>The answer was "the most number of", and i assume that it be changed to "the largest number of".. but why? isn't "the most number of" idiomatic (at least i thought)?
Would "the highest number of" be correct as well?</p>
<p>Another one, is "on the evening" correct here (this was what i put as the answer)? i thought it should be "in the evening" as in "in the morning" or "in the afternoon" as opposed to "on the day" or "on Thursday".</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>I believe “most” must be followed by a plural, like most human beings like praise, most apples are red. </p>
<p>“On the evening” must be followed by some modifier, while “in the evening” is always used by itself, usually at the end of a sentence. “On the evening of April 9” as opposed to “reading a book in the evening.”</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>thank you!! your explanation helped a lot :]</p>
<p>Is that from a real SAT or a test prep book? I have never seen “most” tested this way and I’m just curious if this a new error pattern.</p>
<p>this question was from the CB online course test. so the format should be legit :)</p>
<p>@European Mom,
actually I still don’t understand; I was stuck with the same problem, but you see
I think the “most” you used in the example sentence "most apples … " is not synonymous
with the “most” in the question.
In the question, “most” was the superlative as in sentences such as,</p>
<p>Most votes went to the candidate.
and , She had the most money in the company.</p>
<p>So in cases like this, “most” doesn’t necessarily go in front of a plural noun since it was used with “money” in the second example sentence.
I am totally confused because there are cases of “the most number of” being used in different sentences… . ! Can you explain further?</p>
<p>“most” implicitly encompasses the notion of “number” … so to say “the most number of” is very awkward and not correct usage.</p>
<p>The radio station received the most calls from listeners on the evening it aired a discussion of the music of Aretha Franklin.</p>
<p>To see that “on the evening” is correct try substituting a specific date, say July 28. Would you say “on July 28” or “in July 28”?</p>
<p>Just to be more specific, in this context, “most” means “the greatest number of.”</p>
<p>For example, if you say *I have the most votes, so I win.*you are saying I have the greatest number of votes, so I win. It would not make sense to say I have the most number of votes, which would translate into I have the greatest number of number of votes.</p>
<p>thnx that helped a lot ! </p>
<p>I didn’t know the full implied meaning of “most.”
In colloquial language, I guess people do say “most number of” a lot. :)</p>
<p>@fogcity,</p>
<p>Okay, I still think that “on the evening” doesn’t quite make sense without a date mentioned after the phrase.
And even if you could say something like “on the evening of July 13th,”
the “on” preposition seems to come because of the date, not because of the evening,
as in “On March 22nd.”</p>
<p>I don’t know if people do really use the phrase “on the evening”… </p>
<p>Example: I went out to eat in the evening.</p>
<p>(Not, “I went out to eat on the evening” ) Is there any other explanation?</p>
<p>You’re right that “on the evening” by itself, without a specific “date” doesn’t make sense. The sentence at issue does however identify the date – the when: “it aired a discussion of …”.</p>
<p>Try various phrases – some where the date is explicit (such as July 29), and others where it’s indirect, such as when some event took place.</p>
<p>Also try variations of evening, such as morning, or weekend, or day.</p>
<p>For example “on the evening when I met the math teacher”, “on the morning it rained”, “on the day the Giants won the pennant”. The preposition is always “on”.</p>
<p>The situation that you are considering is where the explicit date, or the event that serves to replace the date is missing. Is there a phrase that uses “evening” or some similar part of the day to describe that? Perhaps. “The doctor told me to take the medication in the morning”. Or.“We’ll have a drink in the evening.” My sense is that this usage suggests a regular event. I think that there are more precise ways of saying this. In any case this is not the case for the particular sentence that we’re discussing. Here the date of the event is identified and “on” is expected.</p>
<p>Now I get it! Thnx so much; you cleared up a lot of muddled things in my head :)</p>