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05 Jun 2022, 06:54
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ExpertsGlobal5
If it is hypothetical, then why WILL BE is correct? I thought this sentence is not hypothetical with clear markers such as "at present" and "in the future".
If it is hypothetical, then why WILL BE is correct? I thought this sentence is not hypothetical with clear markers such as "at present" and "in the future".
ExpertsGlobal5
06 Jun 2022, 05:59
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Pankaj0901
Hello Pankaj0901,
We hope this finds you well.
There appears to have been a bit of confusion; to clarify, the helping verbs "would" and "could" are preferred for referring to hypotheticals, but the use of verbs such as "predict", "guess", or - in this case - "believe" also convey the hypothetical nature of the actions, so the use of "would" and "could" is actually redundant here.
Thus, using "can" in place of "could" would be better, but the use of "could" is not incorrect, and since all the answer choices use "could" rather than "can", this usage is not a factor in determining the best answer choice.
In other words, the use of "could" in place of "can" is merely a stylistic choice in this case.
We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
08 Jun 2022, 08:33
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Pankaj0901
I don't agree with the post above that describes the choice of "could" (instead of "can") as a 'stylistic choice'. There's a difference in meaning -- if you say "I believe you could be right", that means "I think it's possible you're right". If you say "I believe you can be right", that means "I believe you have the ability to be right." In the original sentence, "could" is much better than "can", and, just as in the examples I just provided, the presence of the word "believe" doesn't mean we can then freely choose between "could" and "can", nor does it mean "can" is a better choice.
As for how this sentence uses "will be" and "could" in the same phrase, the sentence is describing the views of a large group of people. Really there are three points of view the observers can have: the Middle East will be more stable in future, the Middle East might be more stable in future, or the Middle East won't be more stable in future. The sentence is just saying that most observers hold one of the first two opinions -- some think it will be more stable, some think it might become more stable. A sentence like "A majority of poll respondents said they strongly agree or somewhat agree with raising taxes" does the same thing -- it describes a large group of people, and suggests they belong to one of two mutually exclusive groups (you can't both strongly agree and somewhat agree, but by inserting "or" between the two, the sentence conveys that the majority are in one or the other category).
