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Difficulty: MediumAdjective and Adverb Usage

To monitor the structural integrity of the bridge, the engineers measured the vibrations of the steel cables. The newly installed sensors detected the frequency shifts more precise than the older analog devices did, providing the team with highly accurate data.

Which choice best replaces the underlined portion to ensure correct grammatical usage?

  1. A
    more precise than
  2. more precisely thanAnswer
  3. C
    more precisely then
  4. D
    most precisely than

Answer

The correct answer is 'more precisely than' because it uses the comparative adverb form to modify the verb 'detected' when comparing two items.
The correct choice uses the adverb 'precisely' because it modifies the verb 'detected,' describing how the action was performed. Since the sentence compares the performance of two distinct tools (the newly installed sensors and the older analog devices), the comparative form 'more... than' is required. Therefore, 'more precisely than' is the grammatically correct option.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the word being modified by the comparative phrase.
The phrase modifies the verb 'detected'.
Knowing the part of speech of the modified word determines whether an adjective or an adverb is required.
2
Determine the correct modifier form (adjective vs. adverb).
An adverb ('precisely') is required to modify the verb 'detected'.
Adjectives modify nouns, whereas adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.
3
Evaluate the comparative context and conjunction.
Since exactly two things are being compared, the comparative 'more' is used instead of the superlative 'most', and the comparative conjunction 'than' is used instead of 'then'.
Comparatives are used for two items, and 'than' is the correct homophone for comparisons.

Key Concept

Adjective and Adverb Usage in Comparisons
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Topics

Adjective and Adverb Usage

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