Hedged modal register — Your Brain Is Lying to You
Grammar: Modal Verbs
Free ESL grammar exercise on hedged modal register themed around your brain is lying to you. Printable worksheet from EnglishPlans.com.
What's on this worksheet
A Level 5 (advanced) ESL grammar exercise on psychology, practising modal verbs. The worksheet has a short reading excerpt, a grammar reference and graded practice items.
From the reading
A heuristic may well feel like a rational decision from the inside, but it is a cognitive bias waiting to fire. The anchor — a random number — had silently colonised their judgement. One must surely pause at that finding.
Grammar: Modal Verbs
- may well / might
- This heuristic may well explain most pricing errors. — hedged probability, academic register
- could arguably / must
- Loss aversion could arguably be the most studied bias. — invited reader agreement, journalistic hedge
Sample items
- Loss aversion ______ explain why people hold failing investments far too long.
- Nudge theory ______ be the most influential policy idea of the last two decades.
- Anyone familiar with Kahneman's research ______ be surprised by how irrational experts can be.
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