Fill in the blanks with ‘later’, ‘last’, ‘latest’ or ‘latter’.

1. The —————- part of the film is more interesting than the former part.

2. He is ——————- than I expected.

3. Have you heard the —————– news?

4. Ours is the —————– house in the street.

Answers

1. latter

2. later

3. latest

4. last

Fill in the blanks with ‘elder’, ‘eldest’, ‘older’ or ‘oldest’.

1. He is the —————– man in the village.

2. My ————— brother is a doctor.

3. She is —————- than me.

4. This is Antonio, the duke’s —————- son.

Answers

1. oldest

2. elder / eldest

3. older

4. eldest

Fill in the blanks with ‘nearest’ or ‘next’.

1. This is the ——————- hospital to my house.

2. The post office is ————– to my house.

3. The injured were taken to the —————— hospital.

4. His house is —————- to mine.

Answers

1. nearest

2. next

3. nearest

4. next

Fill in the blanks with further or farther.

1. After this he made no —————- remarks.

2. Kolkata is ——————- from the equator than Colombo.

Answers

1. further

b) farther / further

Notes

Later and latest refer to time; latter and last refer to position.

Elder and eldest are used only of persons, not of animals or things. Nowadays, these two adjectives are only used to talk about the members of the same family. Note that elder cannot be followed by than. Older and oldest are used of both people and things.

Nearest means the shortest distance  away. Next refers to one of a sequence of things coming one after the other.

Both further and farther are used to express distance. Further is also used to mean ‘additional’.