5 exercises — practise stating intended vs actual behavior with "supposed to".
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "supposed to" to describe documented, intended function behavior?
"This endpoint is supposed to return a 404 for unknown IDs, not a 500" is correct: "be supposed to + bare infinitive" describes the documented, intended behavior, here contrasted with the actual buggy behavior. Option B incorrectly uses "supposes to" as a main verb, which is not how this fixed expression works; it requires "be". Option C incorrectly follows "supposed to" with a gerund instead of the bare infinitive. Option D incorrectly conjugates the verb after the infinitive marker "to", which must take the bare form.
2 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses the negative of "supposed to" to flag unexpected behavior in a bug report?
"The retry logic isn't supposed to fire on 4xx responses, but it does" correctly negates "be supposed to" with "isn't", followed by the bare infinitive, clearly contrasting intended versus actual behavior. Option B incorrectly uses "doesn't" with "supposed", which conflicts with the "be supposed to" structure. Option C incorrectly follows "supposed to" with a gerund. Option D incorrectly places "not" between "supposed" and "to" without the auxiliary "be", producing a malformed negation.
3 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "supposed to" in the past to describe an expectation about a completed deployment that did not hold?
"The rollout was supposed to finish by 5 PM, but it stalled at 80%" is correct: past tense "was supposed to" describes a past expectation that was not met, which the contrasting past-tense clause confirms. Option B's present tense "is supposed to" does not match a scenario already reported as having stalled in the past. Option C incorrectly uses a gerund after "supposed". Option D incorrectly uses present perfect "has supposed to", which is not a valid form of this expression.
4 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "supposed to" to state a team convention or informal rule during code review?
"New migrations are supposed to include a rollback script" is correct: "are supposed to" plus the bare infinitive states an expected team convention. Option B is missing the required auxiliary "are" before "supposed". Option C is missing the infinitive marker "to" before the bare verb. Option D incorrectly uses a gerund ("including") instead of the bare infinitive.
5 / 5
Which sentence correctly forms a question with "supposed to" to check an assumption during a standup?
"Is this job supposed to run every hour or every day?" is correct: questions with "be supposed to" invert "be" and the subject, keeping "supposed to + bare infinitive" intact. Option B incorrectly adds "does", which conflicts with the required "be"-auxiliary structure. Option C incorrectly uses the present participle "supposing" instead of the past participle "supposed", which is fixed in this expression. Option D incorrectly follows "supposed" with a gerund instead of "to + bare infinitive".