What is the correct answer to the question?

[FutureGadgetsLab]

A practise English paper for year 6 question. The question was to work out whether something was certain, possible or impossible. So "I may go to Ella's house" is possible, "I am going out" is definite and so on.

The question was "it may rain cats and dogs, if we have a storm"

What would your answer to this question be? I'm convinced the answer book is wrong.

Firstly raining cats and digs is a well known idiom.

Is it? I've rarely heard it. I asked people in person as well as this has irritated me and they didn't get it either.

Regarding your point about the learning objective, why use something that could be misinterpreted? If your whole point is to focus on the grammar, why use something like that to complicate it?

Splendide yup I thought that as well. It's a trainwreck of a question.

My mind would very briefly thought 'is this a trick question?', but i would have gone with 'possible' more or less without hesitation.

'Raining cats and dogs' is a familiar saying to me.

I am very familiar with "raining cats and dogs" and have no problem treating it as the same as "raining heavily" but I don't really understand the question regardless. What is it that I am I saying is certain, possible or impossible?

Would the phrase - "It will rain" have a different answer to "it may rain"? Regardless of the phrasing it is always possible and never certain that rain may occur. Are they asking if the speaker is certain about something? In that case it doesn't matter what the rest of the phrase says, the presence of the word "may" indicates that the answer is "possible". So "unicorns may come to dinner" - answer possible.

that is a terrible question.

"it may" suggests the answer is "possible"

however "raining cats and dogs" is factually "impossible"

grrrr. why are they testing knowledge of random sayings and not focusing on the grammar?

Surely it has to be 'possible' because the statement starts with 'if', so it's conditional?
If it was 'it may rain, if we have a storm', the raining part couldn't be 'certain' at least because it's dependent on the storm.

it will rain = definite
it may rain = possible

I think "possible" should have been "conditional", then the whole thing makes more sense.
So "It may rain cats and dogs, if we have a storm" is conditional, because of the "may" and the "if", whereas "I am going out" is definite because there are no qualifying words to make it less certain.

grrrr. why are they testing knowledge of random sayings and not focusing on the grammar?

Precisely!

Leaving aside the cats and dogs angle, it is clearly possible if you are using the term may as that is something that may happen but it is inferred it might not.

Is it not incorrect to use 'may' anyway? Surely it should be 'might'. I thought 'might' suggested possibility and 'may' is from 'to be allowed to'.

I am dreading DS starting homework - I can't stand this kind of sloppy question!

Yes raining Cats and dogs is a well known idiom - certainly more common than a mid air collision involving a Japanese car manufacturers spare parts order.

Then its raining Datsun cogs!!

If someone was just saying that to me in the street then I'd say they were telling me that rain was a possibility. But if it was given to me in a test situation then I'd probably choose 'impossible' because technically it is (Sharknado and Wizard of Oz aside). I think it's a poor choice of question because of the ambiguity, should have just been 'it may rain heavily if we have a storm'.

Implied, not inferred, I think?

I assume the paper is referring to modal verbs.

here or here

I loved modal logic at Uni. In fact, I wrote 35,000 words about 'can'.

DS has ASD and is a very literal thinker, he most definitely would have put impossible. In fact, I probably would have as well. To me, there are two answers to that question when there shouldn't be. I don't think it's right to leave it open to interpretation unless specifically told that "raining cats and dogs" was being used as an idiom in this instance. Why not put "it may rain heavily, if we have a storm"?

Possible, because if there is a storm it may rain cats and dogs.

The more literal-minded pupils are very likely to struggle with idiomatic expressions, but that doesn't mean it's badly worded.

Robins

Implied, not inferred, I think?

Not correct Implied and inferred are opposites (like send and receive) the person that uses 'may rain' is implying it might rain, the person that hears it /reads it infers it might.

What was the correct answer supposed to be?

OK potatoes thank you that makes some sense. So we think they're asking subjectively whether the speaker is certain something will happen or certain something will not happen or not sure.

In that case the cats and dogs question is irrelevant, the phrase could be "It may rain hens' teeth, if we have a storm.

So it's not testing knowledge of idioms or anything. That's better! As long as that's been explained properly in the question then it works fine.

Quite.

You said 'if you are using the term ...'.

If you are using the term, you are doing the implying, not the inferring.

Sorry, posted too soon.

If we change 'may' for might (and they're pretty much synonymous in this instance) and I said to you, "it might rain cats and dogs, if it rains" then surely you'd see it's possible. Possible from a linguistic point of view anyway.

Semantic vs pragmatic innit!

I would have said it was possible because round here raining cats and dogs means raining heavily.

However it's a stupid question