5 exercises — master fewer/less, number of/amount of, each/every, and some/any in professional IT writing.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
The optimisation resulted in _____ memory usage and _____ database round-trips per request.
"Memory usage" is uncountable → "less memory usage". "Database round-trips" is countable (you can count individual trips) → "fewer round-trips". The fewer/less distinction is one of the most tested in professional technical writing. Quick test: if you can put a number in front of it ("three round-trips"), use "fewer". If you cannot ("three memory usages" — unnatural), use "less".
2 / 5
The report showed a significant increase in the _____ failed requests and the _____ time spent waiting for upstream services.
"Failed requests" is countable → "the number of failed requests". "Time" is uncountable → "the amount of time spent". This pairing tests the core rule: countable nouns use "number of"; uncountable nouns use "amount of". Common errors: "the amount of errors" (should be "number of"), "the number of latency" (should be "amount of latency").
3 / 5
_____ microservice is independently deployable, and _____ microservice in the cluster has been assigned a dedicated health check endpoint.
"Every microservice is independently deployable" — "every" makes a universal generalisation about the entire group as a set. "Each microservice has been assigned" — "each" focuses on individual members of the group one by one (each one gets its own endpoint). The distinction is subtle but real: "every" = the whole set; "each" = individually distributed. Both are grammatically correct in many contexts, but this nuance appears in precise technical writing.
4 / 5
The QA engineer checks: "_____ tests are currently failing, and we can't merge until there aren't _____ critical failures in the pipeline."
"Some tests are failing" — positive statement (fact/observation) uses "some". "There aren't any critical failures" — negative clause uses "any". The rule: "some" for positives and offers; "any" for negatives and questions. "There aren't some" is non-standard. Common error: "we don't have some open issues" — should be "we don't have any open issues".
5 / 5
Choose the sentence with correct quantifier usage for a performance report:
"API calls" is countable → "fewer". "Latency" is uncountable (a quality/measure) → "amount of". Only Option B applies both rules correctly. Option A uses "less calls" (wrong — countable) and "number of latency" (wrong — uncountable). Option C correctly uses "fewer calls" but incorrectly uses "number of latency". Option D correctly uses "amount of latency" but incorrectly uses "less calls".