grammaticality - "Those who qualify will be awarded a certificate" or "those who qualify will be awarded certificates"?


All my life, I have been confused with choosing plural or singular form to represent one-one correspondence notion.



Only those who qualify will be awarded a certificate.



or



Only those who qualify will be awarded certificates.



?


Another example, let us consider the following:


"Each student gets one pencil". But it becomes ambiguous if I rewrite in plural form as "Students get pencils".


I hope someone can give me a general rule to overcome my confusion. :-)




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