Hi guys. In this sentence, the right answer is B. But D will be corrected if it has "that" behind it. Why does it need to have "that" to be correct? Can someone explain? Thank you.

A buffet dinner is available to the guests, so they may eat ------- looks appetizing to them without having to place an order.
A. anyway
B. whatever
C. wherever
D. anything

Question

Hi guys. In this sentence, the right answer is B. But D will be corrected if it has "that" behind it. Why does it need to have "that" to be correct? Can someone explain? Thank you.

A buffet dinner is available to the guests, so they may eat ------- looks appetizing to them without having to place an order.
A. anyway
B. whatever
C. wherever
D. anything

Answer

You're right — the correct answer is B. whatever. Here's why "whatever" works and why "anything" would need "that" to be correct:

In this sentence, you're choosing the right word to introduce a noun clause — specifically, a clause acting as the object of the verb "eat." The phrase should mean: "eat anything that looks appetizing to them."

"Whatever" is a compound word that already includes the meaning of "anything that." So, "eat whatever looks appetizing to them" is correct and natural.

"Anything", on its own, is just a pronoun. If you say "eat anything looks appetizing", it's grammatically incorrect because "anything" can't directly introduce a clause with a verb ("looks") without a connector.

To fix it, you'd need to say:
"eat anything that looks appetizing to them."

So, "whatever" works alone, but "anything" needs "that" (or "which") to connect the rest of the clause. That’s the key difference