Question

Fill in the blank with the most suitable word/phrase.

Rita! You didn't look both sides while you were crossing the road. You ______ hit by a car.

• A. could have been
• B. can be
• C. should have been
• D. must have been

Answer 1

The correct option is A could have been

Modal Verbs show us the attitude of the speaker to what is being said or done. The term "modal" means expressing mood and mood is a way to express the attitude of the speaker.

The given sentence expresses the incident that has happened in the past and a caution or warning is posed in order to overcome such condition. Therefore a past modal verb of ability is needed to use it as hypothetically, to talk about things that really didn't happen in the past.

Option A is the correct answer because it contains "could have + past participle" means that something was possible in the past, or you had the ability to do something in the past, but you didn't do it.

Whereas, option B, C and D do not have the expression that is needed in the sentence, because option C shows something wasn't a good idea, but you did it anyway; option D goes same as option C but with stronger sense; option B shows what was possible, which does not suit the given sentence.