There has been little rain in this area for months, ___________?

[Enjoyenglish]

Hello. This question is in my exercise book.
- There has been little rain in this area for months, ___________?
A. has it
B. has there (key)
C. hasn't it
D. hasn't there
Why is D incorrect, please?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

D is correct.

If your book has a different answer, it's a mistake.

 

[kilroy65]

B. is the correct answer because the quantifier little (=not much) makes the sentence negative. It is the same as There hasn't been much rain in this area for months, has there?

 

[jutfrank]

Both B. and D. are possible, depending on the meaning. I think D. is more likely.

You've done it, have you?
You've done it, haven't you?

 

[Roman55]

Then you could argue that it means, there has been a small amount of rain in this area for months, hasn't there? To use has there as a tag to there has is unnatural to any native speaker.

Edit: this is in reply to post #3

 

[jutfrank]

B. is the correct answer because the quantifier little (=not much) makes the sentence negative. It is the same as There hasn't been much rain in this area for months, has there?

It doesn't matter whether little is equivalent in meaning to not much. It doesn't make the sentence negative.

Anyway, whatever the answer, it's a poor question. Not a good example of question tag usage.

 

[GoesStation]

Anyway, whatever the answer, it's a poor question. Not a good example of question tag usage.

I want to reinforce this. The question is too unnatural to be worth asking. The natural way to say this would be There hasn't been much rain in this area for months, has there?

 

[GoesStation]

There has rarely/seldom/never been agreement on this, has there?


;-)