Question

Fill in the blanks with the most appropriate option:
"________ your son speaks English?"
"No, but he ______ when he was a schoolboy."
A.has to / must
B.could / may
C.might / can
D.can /could
E.may / must

Answer 1

Hint: In the given sentence the speaker is asking the person if her/his son is able to speak English.
The person answers by saying that he was able to speak the language when he was a schoolboy (reference to a time in the past).So we need to check the sentence and answer according to that.

Complete answer:
Option A is incorrect : HAS TO/MUST- express compulsion.So here it is like compulsory so the option cannot be used for the sentence properly so this is the incorrect option.

Option B is incorrect : COULD/MAY - COULD is the past tense, the sentence is in the present tense. MAY expresses possibility.So the both option cannot be used as the proper option for the given sentences

Option C is incorrect : MIGHT/CAN - MIGHT expresses possibility and CAN expresses ability. It is irrelevant in the sentence. So the option is not possible to be used as the correct one fot the given sentences.

Option D is correct : CAN means being able to. COULD is the past tense of CAN. In the given sentence the speaker is asking the person if her/his son is able to speak English.
The person answers by saying that he was able to speak the language when he was a schoolboy (reference to a time in the past). Thus CAN/COULD is the correct answer.

Option E is incorrect : MAY/MUST - MAY expresses possibility. MUST express compulsion. So cannot be used as the correct option and it is incorrect .

Hence the correct answer is option ‘D’.

Note:: Remember that In the given sentence the speaker is asking the person if her/his son is able to speak English. The person answers by saying that he was able to speak the language when he was a schoolboy (reference to a time in the past). So make sure the given opinion matches the sentence correctly.