Complete the gaps with the modal verbs – must, may, may not, might, might not, could, can’t

1. "Excuse me. May I come in?" 2. "You must stay in bed until I return". 3. "I've had to look after her since I was 14". 4. "I couldn 't believe my eyes". 5. "You should have been examined years ago". 6. "She won't get up". 7. "I can't find anything wrong with you at all". 8. "I ought to call the police". 9. "Can I get up soon?" 10. "You should try to lose weight". 11. "She told me that I couldn't get married and that I had to look after her". 12. "Will you spend Christmas with us?" 13. "You'll have to have physiotherapy". 14."You mustn 't do anything like this again". 15. "You don't have to do everything for her".

1. Find in the text sentences with modal verbs + Perfect Infinitive. Define the meanings of the modal verbs. Retell the story

Martin had been one of the winners named in a magazine crossword competition and was waiting impatiently for the postman to deliver his cheque.

"It ought to have been delivered by now", he said to Jillian one breakfast time. "The results were published over a week ago, so the prizes must have been posted before this. Even if they were sent off on the day the results were published, they should have been delivered by now. It can't have been lost in the post, can it?" he asked doubtfully.

"Do you think", Jillian suggested, "that your form might have been wrongly filled in? If you didn't write our address clearly enough, the cheque could have been misdirected".

Martin was about to explain that the address must have been correctly written, because he had checked the form twice when he heard the sound of letters falling through the letter-box onto the front-door mat. He came back to the breakfast table with two bills, but no cheque. "It must have been mislaid", he said. "I'll ring the magazine during the day".

"Well, what's your news?" Jillian asked when she met Mar­tin on their way home that evening.

"Oh, I rang the magazine", he told her, "and they said the cheques should have been received because they had been posted a week ago. So I rang the post office, I said I wondered if a letter could have been lost or if it might have been wrongly delivered. They said it couldn't have been mislaid in the post office and that if it had been sent to the wrong address, it would have been returned to them. So I rang the police and told them that a cheque should have been delivered to me but hadn't. They said that an envelope might have been dropped in the street by the postman, but it's unusual, and that it ought to have been handed in to them as lost property if it had been picked up. It would certainly have been there if anyone had found it".

"Then I met Tom at lunchtime", Martin said, as they were approaching the front door. "He suggested it might have been pushed under the door mat. Let's see", he said, opening the door and bending down. Red-faced, he showed Jillian a dusty enve­lope.

"It must have been there for days", she laughed. "Come on, how much have you won?"

The cheque was for one pound. "It'll pay for the telephone calls", Martin said. "I'd better ring Tom, and let him know he was right".

"It might have been lost for years", Tom said, when he heard, "if I hadn't suggested looking under the mat. You don't mind if I write a little story about it for my paper, do you?" And two days later Martin read in the local paper for which Tom worked:

A valuable letter to Mr Martin Fry was thought to have been lost or misdirected. After two months the letter was discovered to have been pushed under the front-door mat. Perhaps Mr Fry's mat will get cleaned more often in future.

"Your friend", said Jillian, when she read it, "has got a mis­placed sense of humour".

Modal verb can