situation vs circumstance

[vkhu]

There is this exercise at the end of page 4 (titled "LISTEN"):
http://d.violet.vn/uploads/previews/499/1677515/preview.swf

The key is at the end of the page. What I want to ask is question 38. Why must I use situation and not circumstance? aren't those two the same in meaning?

 

[5jj]

If you want a question answered, please post it in this forum. People who give up their time to respond here should not have to hunt through long documents to find the question.

Links are acceptable if they provide full context, background information, etc, but not for the question itself.

 

[vkhu]

It came from a passage so I don't know if this will suffice:

Next time you are in a listening....................., try to predict what the speaker is going to say.

A situation
B circumstance

The answer is A but why can't I use B? Aren't they the same?

 

[5jj]

Next time you are in a listening....................., try to predict what the speaker is going to say.

A situation.....B circumstance

The answer is A but why can't I use B? Aren't they the same?

Circumstances (usually plural) are the facts that are connected with and affect a situation, an event or an action. A situation is all the things that are happening at a particular time and in a particular place. (OALD)

If one person is listening to another, this is what is happening, not really the facts about what is happening.

There is sometimes overlap;for example, the situation is/circumstances are that a tourist, lost, has asked for directions and is listening to the response. It's difficult to make a sharp difference there.