Help the fantasy novelist complete the backstory of their main character by choosing the correct article.

Despite growing up in a remote and damp cave, the young hero received ___ surprisingly excellent education from a family of philosophical bats.

The correct answer is a.

While "education" is typically an uncountable, abstract noun that takes no article (e.g., "Education is important"), it takes the indefinite article a/an when it is modified by an adjective to describe a specific kind or quality of that abstract concept. Because "surprisingly" starts with a consonant sound, we use "a".