Cover of the textbook New Total English Advanced - Students' Book

The key answer of exercise 6

The key to exercise solutions in chapter 10.2 - What does it feel like? for the textbook New Total English Advanced - Students' Book with authors JJ Wilson with Antonia Clare from Pearson Education

Question

Work in pairs. Discuss the difference in meaning (if any) between the modal verbs in italics.

Answer

  1. same meaning
  2. different → can't is a deduction about how he feels, shouldn't is a statement about how he should feel, normally does much is a statement about how he usually performs, could've done means it was possible for him to have done better
  3. same meaning
  4. different → might be is about the present, could have been is about the past
  5. same meaning
  6. different → must is much surer than might
  7. different → couldn't is much surer than might not
  8. same meaning