TOFEL question.

[Student33]

Hello,

Kindly examine the following item from TOFEL exercise:
3. We were fortunate enough to visit the Grand Canyon. It has _____. beautiful scenery that is muchmany beautiful landscapesmany beautiful sceneriesmuch beautiful scenery


Strangely the correct answer was (4) do you agree? It was very strange to me because as a rule of thumb (much) is never used with positive sentences,instead it is used in questions and negative sentences.:confused:

[JRiddy]

You are probably thinking of "much" vs. "a lot of," in which case, your rule of thumb applies. (Add this to your rule: "much more" is acceptable in the positive.)

Though it would be more natural to say "It has a lot of beautiful scenery," "much" means the same thing as "a lot of;" "much" is just more formal. So (4) is right, although "a lot of" would have been better.