I was studying for the IELTS exams and found the question
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
With some search, I see that "To what extent" in this case is another way to say "How much".
My question is, can I always make this substitution ("How much" => "To what extent") or is it a idiom?
For example, can I say, "To what extent money do you have?"
Best Answer
You can ask
and the answer will be "very much" or "a little" or "not at all", but it won't be "7" or "4" or "0".
On the other hand, if you ask
the answer can still be "very much" or "a little", but it can also be a precise amount ("4 dollars", or "33 euros").
You can substitute "To what extent" for "How much" only in the former case, when you are in fact asking for the extent of something (the extent of your agreement to the statements). In the latter case, you aren't asking for the extent of something, but rather for the precise amount, so "To what extent" doesn't make sense in that context."
Note that you can always replace "to what extent" with "how much", but the reverse is not always true. "How much" has a wider range of uses, and some of those don't equate with "to what extent."