solve

[jiang]

Dear teachers,

I always use the letter-lock myself. My two words are ..... and .....Who would guess them? It would take a very clever thief several hours to work out even one of them. (The person had two boxes and I think the letter-lock refers to the letter-lock of the two boxes)

The question I asked the other day was taken from this part of the text. And the choices are :
a. find a way to open b. solve
The given answer is "a". I asked the question because I was unable to find the definitino "find a way to open" under "work out" but I did find the definitino "solve". That's why I asked the question. Is it possible the give answer is correct in that in that particular context "work out" means to solve the problem of letter-lock and open the box? I feel confused.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you in advance.

Jiang

[5jj]

You have already posted this question here: http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/as...tml#post828143
Please don't start a new thread with the same question.