Why methoxy group acts similar to trifluoromethyl in nucleophilic aromatic substitution In an online test, the following question was asked:



The answer to this question was:



I totally agree with the answer, as $\ce{OCH_3}$ is an EDG, hence it will tend to form meta product in this reaction.


While reading NAS on Master Organic Chemistry, I came up to this article:



This article says that $\ce{OCH_3}$ behaves similar to $\ce{CF_3}$, but I can't figure out the possible reason. Any help is appreciated!



Related (unanswered) question: Nucleophilic substitution in aromatic compounds
Normally during a nucleophillic aromatic substitution reaction one of oxygen's lone pairs would delocalize across the ring, the existence of a triple bond here prevents this from happening so oxygen actually ends up acting like an EWG.