I had to wait in line at the store ...

quirrell

Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2014
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
Girl: I had to wait in line at the store for almost twenty minutes.
Boy: (a) Sorry to hear that. Maybe in the future we’ll never have to wait in line.
Girl: (b) What do you mean?
Boy: I read about a store without cashiers. You take what you want to buy and just walk out.
Girl: (c) Is that it? How do you pay?
Boy: There are cameras and sensors in the store. They keep track of the items you chose and send the information to an app on your smartphone.
Girl: Then the app pays for them (d) when you choose the items.
Boy: Exactly. I’m sure these kinds of stores will be more common in the future.

Q: Among the underlined expressions, is there anything that is not fit in well in the conversation?
 
Who wrote this conversation?
 
It is from an English test in Korea. It is loosely based on the English textbook for middle school students in Korea.
 
a) is grammatically correct but it seems like a strange thing for the girl's friend (I'm assuming they're friends) to say. It would be more likely that someone in the store would say it if the girl complained before leaving.

b) is correct.

c) is correct if the girl is asking for clarification that that's all you have to do to shop in a cashier-less store.

d) isn't great, to be honest. If the app paid for each item as you chose it, it would be making potentially dozens of separate payments each time you were in the store (depending on how many things you wanted to buy). I suspect the app takes payment once you've either left the store or as you're about to leave and you've confirmed that you've picked up everything you want.

Note that your final question should be "... is there anything that does not fit well ...?"
 

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