Test question from English File Intermediate (Oxford) Hello! There's a test question that bothers me. A What kind of food is this? B I'm not sure. It ___ be Thai or Indonesian, I think! A must B can

Sasha

Professional Teacher

Test question from English File Intermediate (Oxford) Hello! There's a test question that bothers me. A What kind of food is this? B I'm not sure. It ___ be Thai or Indonesian, I think! A must B can't C mustn't I know "mustn't" is wrong as it expresses prohibition. So, I really need to choose between A must B can't. Could you explain why option A is way more better than option B? There must be grammar rules that explain this case. Thank you very much!

Jul 9, 2019 10:22 AM

Answers · 9

I would say option A- 'It must be Thai or Indonesian, I think'. Without the 'I think' on the end you could have option B ( 'I'm not sure. It can't be Thai or Indonesian') but the 'I think' on the end makes option B sound unusual (due to the fact that option B is negative but then with 'I think' you are making a positive exclamation about what you think the food is) :)

July 9, 2019

A must

July 9, 2019

The correct answer is: D) could Very poorly worded question. Who set the question, if you don't mind me asking?

July 9, 2019

in this case 'must' implies strong probability which means that the speaker thinks that it is probably Thai or Indonesian food. 'can't' vice versa shows that it's highly unlikely that the food is Thai or Indonesian both variants are grammatically correct but just because of the logic the former is better

July 9, 2019

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