Jeffery求教大全-13

13·A majority of the international journalists surveyed view nuclear power stations as unsafe at present but that they will, or could, be made sufficiently safe in the future.
(A) that they will, or could,
(B) that they would, or could,
(C) they will be or could
(D) think that they will be or could
(E) think the power stations would or could

答案  D

请教一下这里的will/would的区别，以及这里will be or could表达出来的意思是怎么样的？

这里作者想要对比未来事件发生的可能程度，will（if sth is certain or has been planned to happen)和could(if sth is uncertain to happen, or usually would happen if sth else was true)在D答案里有效表达了这个contrast.

如果将would和could放在一起意思上就不能区分事件发生的可能性，而且语法上也不entirely grammatical。因为would/could在这里表conditional，通常会加if条件在后面，比如下面例子（from manhattan).

I could get that done by Tuesday. -- suspect/not ideal
Six of us would be attending the conference. -- incorrect

上面的例子均被认为不理想或者错误，因为当would/could出现又没有if跟随，我们不禁要问，既然是unconditional为什么不直接用will。Manhattan在state这个rule的时候比较affirmative，似乎暗示现有的GMAT考题里不存在例外情况，而其它的authorities允许将could当作might单独使用。

（个人理解）对于这道题，因为will (unconditional)和could (conditional)一起使用，这个unspoken if是understood的，而且如果硬要将if从句(Ex., if scientists keep doing their research and experiments along the way)添加进原句会有些awkward，跟will有相冲的嫌疑。

个人理解，would和could表示some uncertainty，will指纯粹的将来。