Another question here

[trungthanh]

Hi everyone,
Glad to see you again. Here is another confused question I got from Longman Complete Course book:

8. ______ test positive for antibiotics when tanker trucks arrive at a milk processing plant, according to federal law. the entire truckload must be discarded.
(A) Should milk
(B) If milk
(C) If milk is
(D) Milk should

Pls explain why you choose an answer, thank you
See you later with some more new questions

[studyusa]

Originally posted by trungthanh


8. ______ test positive for antibiotics when tanker trucks arrive at a milk processing plant, according to federal law, the entire truckload must be discarded.
(A) Should milk
(B) If milk
(C) If milk is
(D) Milk should


=> The Ans is B) If milk . It is right since a condition structure is fine.
the Ans D is not possible since a clause as "the entire truckload must be discarded" does not have a conjunction with the main sentence.

[trungthanh]

Thank you for paying attentions!
I think answer B is OK, but according to the book, the correct answer is (A) Should milk!

I think the book's author is right because this is an inversion structure:
"If + Subject+ should + verb" ---> "Should + Subject + verb"
What I'm concern here is the literal meaning of the sentence. Do you think if this sentence makes any sense?
"If milk should test positive for antibiotics ..."

Is there any idiomatic meaning in this sentence? I think there is, because I remembered that I had read the same structure likes "Should football test for steroids?" somewhere. If so, could you explain me more about that?
Or the word "milk" here refers to the milk industry?

Thank you.

[trungthanh]

Originally posted by An Min
The trouble word is not "milk" but "test".
As you know, "test" is a transitive verb, but sometimes it is used as an intransitive verb.

Interesting view, An Min!
But as far as I know, "test" can be used in the following structure:
"test + noun1 + for + noun2"
which means analyse noun1 to see if noun1 contains noun 2 or not.
eg: "Test ore for gold"
So, I still stick to my view that "milk" may be the trouble word.
Let's imagine how milk, which is defined in the Oxford dictionary as "the white liquid that is produced by women and female mammals for feeding their babies" , can stand as a subject to test for smt?

Dear Erin, we need your help! If you don't mind, pls give us you idea!

Thank you

[trungthanh]

Dear Erin,
How hard it is to see you being online in this forum
Could you pls explain the above puzzle for me?
Thanks a milion!

[hsengoren]

Let me give it a try.
As far as it looks, A seems to be the best option.
But, the problem is an active/ passive structure problem.

Should milk test positive for antibiotics when tanker trucks arrive at a milk processing plant, according to federal law. the entire truckload must be discarded.

IMHO, test should be passive. I don't think milk can test itself.
Then, it should read:
Should milk is tested positive.....

[trungthanh]

Oops! It's just a sort while since my last visit, but there's so much new questions. How lively this forum is

Originally posted by hsengoren

Let me give it a try.
As far as it looks, A seems to be the best option.
But, the problem is an active/ passive structure problem.

Should milk test positive for antibiotics when tanker trucks arrive at a milk processing plant, according to federal law. the entire truckload must be discarded.

IMHO, test should be passive. I don't think milk can test itself.
Then, it should read:
Should milk is tested positive.....

Hsengoren, at first thanks for your nice reply .
Yeah, milk, as its common meaning, cannot test itself. But I think there is some tricky things here. For example, milk here may refers to the milk industry, or the should+smt+test for might be used as an idiomatic clause?
Also, I don't think there is any typo here, because as noted earlier, I saw the same structure somewhere: "Should football test for steroids?"
Do you have any idea?

Thank you

[hsengoren]

When I thought about it more I think I got the idea.
Should milk test positive = If milk tests positive
Milk tested positive.
It is sth. like:
The Banks open at 09:00. (Even though the banks cannot open themselves)

[Hippo]

Hello guys,

Here are my thoughts:

First, you know of the inversion which is used to create conditional clauses:
Here is an example:
If I were a pilot I would have fun flying high = Were I a pilot I would have fun flying high.

The same thing happens here with the complex perdicate "should test":
Should milk test positive for antibiotics when tanker trucks arrive at a milk processing plant, according to federal law, the entire truckload must be discarded.

Answer B is incorrect because of "test", which would be "tests" if B were correct.

The other question that I have doubts if it is possible to use conditional form(subjunctive mood) in the first part of the sentence and not to use it in the second part. Or may be "must be discarded" have some "subjunctive"(well I don't know how to say the right word in English) meaning in this case?

I would be satisfied if the sentence were like the following one:
Should milk test positive for antibiotics when tanker trucks arrive at a milk processing plant, according to federal law, the entire truckload SHOULD have to be discarded.

Regards.

[trungthanh]

Originally posted by hsengoren

When I thought about it more I think I got the idea.
Should milk test positive = If milk tests positive
Milk tested positive.
It is sth. like:
The Banks open at 09:00. (Even though the banks cannot open themselves)

Dear Hsenrogen,
It seems to me that your explanation is right,
However, this will bring us another concern: In which condition can we use active verb form instead of passive verb form as it should be at the first glance?