Hello,
What is the answer for the blank?
It ------- necessary to double the production quota by next year to keep up with the market demand.
(A) is
(B) was
© had been
(D) will be
The answer is (D). However, how about (A)? I think (A) is possible, too.
Please let me know which one is the answer, or more likely answer.
Thank you in advance,
sweetpumpkin
To me, only A) sounds meaningful: you have to change things starting from now to double it by the next year (= it’s a given).
D) sounds unnatural to my ear, as if at the moment of speech it wasn’t necessary and will only be necessary in unspecified future before the next year comes (when: a month, two months,… from now?).
I’m sorry but I have to disagree with Eugene (which I hate doing as he is usually so accurate when it comes to questions of tense).
Only (D) is the correct answer.
It is necessary to double the production quota now to keep up with the market demand. - note how I’ve changed this. Use of ‘is’ indicates it should happen immediately, not over a coming period of time.
It was necessary… - not possible as we are speaking about a past action but have combined it with next year, so the past tense doesn’t work.
It had been necessary… - again not possible as it indicates a past action.
It will be necessary… - clearly the best option as it indicates what needs to happen over the coming months for future demand to be met.
Even more loath to disagree with you Bev, sorry, but if I heard my boss putting it like that at a meeting, I’d think: OK, at the moment we have time to relax but will have to return to it at a later stage. So why bother now? (I’ll think about that tomorrow).
Maybe risking to get mired into it completely: to me A) sounds like, “We are to\must double…(= that’s our goal to be achieved by the next year). End of.”
D) as I’d interpret it could mean “We’ll have to double…” (a kind of putting things off, no?)
Option (D) will be found suitable if you think of the sentence structure this way: It will be necessary to double the production quota by next year (if we want) to keep up with the market demand.
[quote=“Eugene2114”]
Even more loath to disagree with you Bev, sorry, but if I heard my boss putting it like that at a meeting, I’d think: OK, at the moment we have time to relax but will have to return to it at a later stage. So why bother now? (I’ll think about that tomorrow).
[quote]
If I heard someone use ‘is’ I’d think it was an impossibility as it couldn’t be done straight away. It would need to be done over time, and though we might start now, we should not expect to complete it immediately.
Well, I think I get it now.
Just to put it to bed as the day starts: 1) Since you mentioned D) as ‘the best option’, did you mean A) was not flat out wrong in some contexts? Best option for tests? (I suspect you’d go for another wording in real life.)
2)Would ‘absolutely’ add anything to how you could read it (“It’s absolutely\it will be absolutely necessary…”)?
D is the wording I would go for ‘in real life’ as well as in a test.
A is not totally impossible.
Adding ‘absolutely’ would not change that.