Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Teo]

Husband: This book looks good. Let's buy it.
Wife: Don't you remember? There _____ the same book on the shelf in our living room already.
(A) is (B) was (C) will be (D) has been
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Thank you very much for your reply.

[asterix]

I'd say "is" is the answer you are looking for . This means the book is still there.
You could use was, but this would mean that the book was on the shelf, but it's not any more.

In the situation you describe, the wife would probably say, "We already have it."

[myprofe]

The answer would have to be "is" but this is not natural English in my opinion. I would say: The same book is on the shelf. -or- We have the same book on the shelf.
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I'm never going to learn if you don't correct my mistakes!

[Teo]

The answer is choice A. What's wrong with choice D?
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Thank you very much for your reply.

[myprofe]

You could say that the same book has been on the shelf at home for 3 years.

The problem is not whether the answer should be A or D. The problem is that the exercise is badly written. The entire sentence is incorrect no matter which answer you choose.

If you say the book has been on the shelf it means that it was there in the past but it is no longer there. This makes no sense.

The real problem comes from the non-native speakers who are writing exercises and language courses. Here in Spain, even at the university level, the course material used to teach English is terrible. There's no excuse for this.
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I'm never going to learn if you don't correct my mistakes!