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SC - Adjective Adverb usage

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karthikpandian19: Legendary Member; Posts: 1665; Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2011 7:04 pmFollowed by: 70 members; Thanked: 165 times

by karthikpandian19 » Sat Jul 14, 2012 4:44 pm

I can hear fairly good, but my doctor tells me to wear hearing aids anyway

****Can you explain why the sentence as written above is wrong and explain the underlying concept****

Regards,
Karthik
The source of the questions that i post from JUNE 2013 is from KNEWTON

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Sat Jul 14, 2012 4:44 pm

alex.gellatly: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 435; Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:27 amFollowed by: 16 members; Thanked: 48 times

by alex.gellatly » Sat Jul 14, 2012 5:48 pm

karthikpandian19 wrote:I can hear fairly good, but my doctor tells me to wear hearing aids anyway

****Can you explain why the sentence as written above is wrong and explain the underlying concept****

You need to use the adv well, not the adj good. An adv is used to modify a verb (it can also modify all other parts of speech besides a noun.)

So... here we want to say "I can hear well". The adv is used to describe the verb hear.
We can also say "I can hear fairly well". Here the adv is used to modify the adv. fairly (as well as the verb hear).

You should use an adv. to answer the question "How does it {verb}? For Example in this sentence: How do you hear? I hear well. For another example we can say I drive my car carefully. (not careful). This answers the question "How do you drive?"

Be very careful of verbs like be, smell, look, ect. For example: we say I am good (because good describes the noun, not the verb). Another example: The flower smells wonderful (not wonderfully because here the verb smell is used like be. So we want to used the adj. to describe the noun flower. The flower doesn't actually do the action smell, but rather "is" wonderful.)

Does this help? Let me know if you have more grammar questions.

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karthikpandian19: Legendary Member; Posts: 1665; Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2011 7:04 pmFollowed by: 70 members; Thanked: 165 times

by karthikpandian19 » Sun Jul 15, 2012 9:08 pm

Alex,

The flowers smell well & The flowers smells good...........Here good / well explains the adverb right, but "good" seems to be correct ????
Can you explain?

alex.gellatly wrote:
karthikpandian19 wrote:I can hear fairly good, but my doctor tells me to wear hearing aids anyway

****Can you explain why the sentence as written above is wrong and explain the underlying concept****
You need to use the adv well, not the adj good. An adv is used to modify a verb (it can also modify all other parts of speech besides a noun.)

So... here we want to say "I can hear well". The adv is used to describe the verb hear.
We can also say "I can hear fairly well". Here the adv is used to modify the adv. fairly (as well as the verb hear).

You should use an adv. to answer the question "How does it {verb}? For Example in this sentence: How do you hear? I hear well. For another example we can say I drive my car carefully. (not careful). This answers the question "How do you drive?"

Be very careful of verbs like be, smell, look, ect. For example: we say I am good (because good describes the noun, not the verb). Another example: The flower smells wonderful (not wonderfully because here the verb smell is used like be. So we want to used the adj. to describe the noun flower. The flower doesn't actually do the action smell, but rather "is" wonderful.)

Does this help? Let me know if you have more grammar questions.

Regards,
Karthik
The source of the questions that i post from JUNE 2013 is from KNEWTON

---If you find my post useful, click "Thank"

---
---Never stop until cracking GMAT---

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alex.gellatly: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 435; Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:27 amFollowed by: 16 members; Thanked: 48 times

by alex.gellatly » Mon Jul 16, 2012 12:53 am

karthikpandian19 wrote:Alex,

The flowers smell well & The flowers smells good...........Here good / well explains the adverb right, but "good" seems to be correct ????
Can you explain?

We should use: The flowers smell good. This is because the verb smell in the case is like "be". Smell is used as a non-action verb in this case. We are describing how the flowers are, not how the flowers do a verb.

Grammatically the sentence "the flowers smell well" means that the flowers are actually smelling, and they do a good job at smelling. This is obviously incorrect. However, note the sentence "my sister smells well" is grammatically fine although sounds a little strange. This means that my sister is good at smelling.

The Key to ADV and ADJ is to think about what you are trying to describe. Are you trying to describe the noun or how the noun does a verb. If its a noun use ADJ, if it s a verb use ADV

Does this help?

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karthikpandian19: Legendary Member; Posts: 1665; Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2011 7:04 pmFollowed by: 70 members; Thanked: 165 times

by karthikpandian19 » Mon Jul 16, 2012 1:03 am

Alex,

This is the reply that i received from a Knewton Expert:

To say "The flowers smell well" would change the meaning of the sentence. It would mean that the flowers themselves are doing the smelling (and have excellent olfactory powers). To say that the flowers "smell good" means that the flowers give off a pleasant-smelling scent.

For a much more detailed discussion of "good" vs. "well," I recommend this link: https://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/go ... -well.aspx

That said, you're not going to happen upon most of these nuances on the GMAT.

alex.gellatly wrote:
karthikpandian19 wrote:Alex,

The flowers smell well & The flowers smells good...........Here good / well explains the adverb right, but "good" seems to be correct ????
Can you explain?

We should use: The flowers smell good. This is because the verb smell in the case is like "be". Smell is used as a non-action verb in this case. We are describing how the flowers are, not how the flowers do a verb.

Grammatically the sentence "the flowers smell well" means that the flowers are actually smelling, and they do a good job at smelling. This is obviously incorrect. However, note the sentence "my sister smells well" is grammatically fine although sounds a little strange. This means that my sister is good at smelling.

The Key to ADV and ADJ is to think about what you are trying to describe. Are you trying to describe the noun or how the noun does a verb. If its a noun use ADJ, if it s a verb use ADV

Does this help?

Regards,
Karthik
The source of the questions that i post from JUNE 2013 is from KNEWTON

---If you find my post useful, click "Thank"

---
---Never stop until cracking GMAT---

Like this post

alex.gellatly: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 435; Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:27 amFollowed by: 16 members; Thanked: 48 times

by alex.gellatly » Mon Jul 16, 2012 3:07 am

karthikpandian19 wrote:Alex,

This is the reply that i received from a Knewton Expert:

To say "The flowers smell well" would change the meaning of the sentence. It would mean that the flowers themselves are doing the smelling (and have excellent olfactory powers). To say that the flowers "smell good" means that the flowers give off a pleasant-smelling scent.

If you reread my post above this is exactly the explanation I told you. I said "Grammatically the sentence "the flowers smell well" means that the flowers are actually smelling, and they do a good job at smelling. This is obviously incorrect." Maybe you were confused with my wording that this is incorrect. Grammatically it is correct, but the meaning is nonsensical. How can a flower smell.

You are correct, an easy question like this will not be tested on the GMAT. However, it is important to understand the basics of English grammar if you are going to exceed in more advanced topics.
I hope this helps. Please ask if you have other questions

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karthikpandian19: Legendary Member; Posts: 1665; Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2011 7:04 pmFollowed by: 70 members; Thanked: 165 times

by karthikpandian19 » Mon Jul 16, 2012 3:30 am

Hey Alex,

I have never said that i didn't understand your explanation. (i fully understood ur explanation)

Thanks for that

I was just sharing the reply from Knewton expert to the forum

alex.gellatly wrote:
karthikpandian19 wrote:Alex,

This is the reply that i received from a Knewton Expert:

To say "The flowers smell well" would change the meaning of the sentence. It would mean that the flowers themselves are doing the smelling (and have excellent olfactory powers). To say that the flowers "smell good" means that the flowers give off a pleasant-smelling scent.
If you reread my post above this is exactly the explanation I told you. I said "Grammatically the sentence "the flowers smell well" means that the flowers are actually smelling, and they do a good job at smelling. This is obviously incorrect." Maybe you were confused with my wording that this is incorrect. Grammatically it is correct, but the meaning is nonsensical. How can a flower smell.

You are correct, an easy question like this will not be tested on the GMAT. However, it is important to understand the basics of English grammar if you are going to exceed in more advanced topics.
I hope this helps. Please ask if you have other questions

Regards,
Karthik
The source of the questions that i post from JUNE 2013 is from KNEWTON

---If you find my post useful, click "Thank"

---
---Never stop until cracking GMAT---

Like this post

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