Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner and Enforcement Officer / Accounts Officer (APFC and EO/AO) 2025 recruitment test. Transcribed from the Commission's own booklet (series A, PENA-A-PTS); answer worked out by our faculty — UPSC has published no answer key for this sitting. This question is in Part A. Answer last reviewed 25 August 2026.

Summers _________ be really hot at times, so make sure you stay hydrated.

(a)can
(b)could
(c)might
(d)may

Answer

Why

Correct — A, (a) can.

All four options are modal verbs of possibility, so the item turns on which kind of possibility the sentence is expressing.

English separates two kinds. General or theoretical possibility says what is true of a class of situations - what happens from time to time, what is capable of happening. Particular or epistemic possibility says how likely one specific event is, on the evidence available now. 'Can' is the modal of the first kind; 'may', 'might' and 'could' belong to the second.

Two signals in the sentence point to general possibility. The subject is 'Summers', a plural referring to summers in general rather than to this summer; and the adverbial is 'at times', which explicitly says that the sentence is describing something that recurs on some occasions and not on others. Together they make the sentence a statement about what summers are like, and the modal that states what a class of things is liable to be is 'can': 'Winters can be bitter here.' 'Trains can be delayed in the monsoon.' 'This medicine can cause drowsiness.'

The second half of the sentence confirms the reading. 'So make sure you stay hydrated' is standing advice, issued because of a known characteristic of summers, not a precaution against one uncertain forthcoming event. Advice of that kind follows a general statement.

So the sentence reads: summers, as a class, are sometimes really hot - therefore, as a rule, keep drinking water. That is (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)could — 'Could' carries either a past ability or a tentative possibility about a particular case, and neither fits. Read as past, 'Summers could be really hot at times' becomes a reminiscence about how summers used to be, which the present-tense advice that follows contradicts. Read as tentative, it hedges a specific prediction - 'this summer could be hot' - and the plural subject with 'at times' is not talking about a specific summer at all. 'Could' is the option most likely to be chosen by ear, because it can be substituted into many sentences of this shape, but here it changes what the sentence is a statement about.
(c)might — 'Might' expresses a remote possibility about a particular occasion: something that may or may not turn out to be the case, with the speaker leaning towards doubt. The sentence is not in doubt about anything. It states a settled characteristic of summers and draws practical advice from it, and the advice would be odd if the premise were uncertain - one does not tell a person to make sure of staying hydrated because of something that might, on balance, not happen. 'Might' also sits awkwardly with 'at times', which asserts that the thing does occur, on some occasions, rather than doubting whether it will.
(d)may — 'May' also expresses possibility about a particular case, and it is the most formal of the three rivals - 'It may rain this evening'. Substituted here it produces a sentence that appears to weigh the chances of a specific hot spell rather than to describe what summers are generally like, which is a different claim from the one the plural subject and 'at times' set up. 'May' has a second sense, permission, which is irrelevant here but is worth keeping in mind, because the can-versus-may distinction that most candidates learn is the permission one, and carrying that lesson into a possibility item is what makes this option attractive.

Concept

The English modals of possibility divide by what they are about.

Can expresses ability and general possibility. Its possibility sense is not about one occasion but about the way things are: it says that the situation described occurs, or is capable of occurring, in the ordinary run of events. That is why it pairs naturally with a plural or generic subject and with frequency adverbials - sometimes, at times, occasionally, from time to time. 'Roads can be flooded in July.' 'Interviews can run long.'

May and might express epistemic possibility - the speaker's estimate of whether one particular thing is or will be the case. They take a specific subject and a specific occasion, and they can always be paraphrased as 'it is possible that ...'. 'It may rain tonight' means it is possible that it will rain tonight.

Could covers past ability, tentative epistemic possibility, and polite requests. In its possibility sense it is close to might, and like might it points at a case rather than at a class.

A quick test separates them. If the sentence can be rewritten as 'It sometimes happens that ...' without loss, the modal is can. If it can only be rewritten as 'It is possible that ...', the modal is may, might or could. 'It sometimes happens that summers are really hot' preserves this sentence exactly. 'It is possible that summers are really hot' does not - it says something much weaker and much stranger.

This is the second item of the fill-in-the-blank set, and its option list is four modal verbs, which announces the grammatical point before the sentence is even read. The set as a whole is built this way: one item on adjective order, two on modality, one on intensifiers with an absolute adjective. Reading the options first and naming the category is the fastest route through all five.

Modality is a favourite of objective English papers because it is a genuine system that most candidates have absorbed only in fragments - usually the schoolroom rule that 'can' is ability and 'may' is permission, which is true and incomplete. The papers test the part that rule leaves out: that 'can' also carries general possibility, and that this sense is grammatically distinct from the epistemic possibility of 'may' and 'might'.

The sentence is also written so that the second clause supports the first. Where a blank sits in a sentence with two clauses, the unblanked clause is evidence: standing advice implies a standing fact, and a hedge implies uncertainty. Using the free clause to constrain the blank is a habit that pays across the whole of Part A.

Key facts

'Can' expresses general or theoretical possibility - what happens in the ordinary run of events - and pairs naturally with generic subjects and frequency adverbials such as 'at times' or 'sometimes'.
'May', 'might' and 'could' express epistemic possibility about one particular case, and can always be paraphrased as 'it is possible that ...'.
The paraphrase test separates them: a sentence that survives rewriting as 'it sometimes happens that ...' takes 'can', while one that requires 'it is possible that ...' takes may, might or could.
The plural generic subject 'Summers' and the adverbial 'at times' both mark the sentence as a statement about a class of occasions rather than about one forthcoming occasion.
The second clause, 'so make sure you stay hydrated', is standing advice, and standing advice follows from a settled characteristic rather than from an uncertain forecast.

Study next

The modal system of English: ability, permission, obligation, deduction and possibility, and which modal serves each function.General against epistemic possibility, and the 'it sometimes happens that' versus 'it is possible that' paraphrase test.Modals of deduction - must, can't, may, might - and how they behave in positive and negative sentences.'Could' across its senses: past ability, tentative possibility, polite request, and unreal conditional.Using the unblanked clause of a two-clause sentence as evidence for what belongs in the blank.

Common traps

Applying the schoolroom rule that 'can' is only ability and 'may' is only permission, which is the incomplete half of the system this item tests.
Choosing 'could' by ear because it fits many sentences of this shape; here it turns a general statement into a past reminiscence or a specific hedge.
Ignoring 'at times', which asserts that the thing does occur on some occasions and so rules out the modals of doubt.
Missing that the plural 'Summers' is generic rather than a reference to particular summers.
Reading the blank clause in isolation when the advice in the second clause settles which kind of possibility is meant.

Modality appears in every EPFO English section, sometimes as a fill-in-the-blank with four modals, sometimes inside an error-spotting item where the modal is the fault. The distractors are always drawn from the same semantic field, so elimination has to be done on function rather than on meaning: which modal expresses ability, which permission, which obligation, which deduction, which general possibility. Candidates who prepare modality as a list of translations lose these items; those who prepare it as a set of functions, each with a paraphrase test, answer them in seconds. The companion item later in this same set uses negated modals to test deduction, which is the other half of the same system.

Related PYQs

EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q8

Which one of the following parts of the sentence, “After a lot of argument I brought him forward to my point of view”, has an error?

(a) After a lot of argument
(b) I brought him forward
(c) to my point of view
(d) No error

Answer(b) I brought him forward

An error-spotting item where the fault is a wrongly chosen verb phrase - 'brought him forward to my point of view' - the same demand that a candidate judge a construction by rule rather than by familiarity.

EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q14

Which one of the following phrasal verbs may be used in the blank space in the sentence, “He is fond of art and seems ____ (suited) to be an artist”?

(a) fit out
(b) bring out
(c) cut out
(d) suit out

Answer(c) cut out

A blank to be filled with the right phrasal verb, with a gloss supplied in brackets; the option set is again four members of one family, decided on function.

EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q9

Which one of the following parts of the sentence, “Don’t ask him how he is because if he starts talking about his health you’ll never get off from him”, has an error?

(a) Don’t ask him how he is because
(b) if he starts talking about his health you’ll never
(c) get off from him
(d) No error

Answer(c) get off from him

Error-spotting on 'get off from him', an item decided by knowing which particle a verb takes - the same kind of small systematic knowledge as modality.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Power cuts ______ last for hours in the district during the summer months.
- (a)may
- (b)can
- (c)might
- (d)shall
Answer(b) can - the sentence describes what happens in the ordinary run of events in the district, a general possibility, and it survives the paraphrase 'it sometimes happens that power cuts last for hours'. (a) and (c) would hedge one particular occasion, and (d) states intention or futurity rather than possibility.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following sentences uses the modal correctly to express a general possibility ?
- (a)The road might be blocked whenever it rains heavily
- (b)The road may be blocked whenever it rains heavily
- (c)The road can be blocked whenever it rains heavily
- (d)The road could be blocked whenever it rains heavily
Answer(c) The road can be blocked whenever it rains heavily - 'whenever' marks a recurring class of occasions, which takes the modal of general possibility. The other three hedge a single occasion and sit awkwardly with a clause that says the thing happens every time the condition is met.

Why