According to a recent study linking high social standing to a habitual

Is (C) really the correct answer? There are two major problems with it that made me immediately eliminate it from consideration. (E) is the only choice that fixes both issues.

"adequately" is an adverb, so it must modify a verb, adjective or other adverb. In this sentence, "adequately" is modifying "smile"; in other words, the sentence is saying "models who don't smile enough..."

Since "adequately" is modifying "smile", it should be placed as closely to smile as possible. In (C) the placement of "adequately isn't ideal".

Further, the pronoun "they" could refer to either the models or the advertisements. In (C), "they" is closer to "advertisements", changing the meaning of the sentence (and making it non-sensical). In (E) the plural noun immediately preceding "they" is "models", which makes sense.

What's the source of the question?

(A) has the same pronoun ambiguity problem as (C) - "they" is closer to "advertisements" than "models".

IMO,

The answer is C as adequately modifies the verb "give".

A fundamental principle of sentence correction is that we must choose an answer that doesn't change the author's intended meaning. Unless the original sentence is nonsensical, we should preserve its meaning.

You're correct that in (C), the placement of "adequately" means that it modifies "give". However, since that completely changes the meaning of the sentence, (C) cannot be right.

However much the adverb ‘adequately’ may be justified as modifying the verb ‘give’, still the author of the passage can not convince that the pronoun ‘they’ stands for the distant 'models' rather than the nearby ‘advertisements’. I feel C clearly suffers from pronoun ambiguity. E is the right on

1. models who do not smile adequately in magazine advertisements give an impression---- The problem with this one is the placement of the adverb adequately, which is not within the radar of its verb -smile -. The pronoun ‘they’ in the non-underlined portions, has a good chance of modifying advertisements rather than then models
2. models in magazine advertisements who do not smile give an impression adequately --- total distortion of meaning. Choice says models who do not smile.
3. models who do not smile in magazine advertisements adequately give an impression – same wrong word order of the adverb adequately and the ambiguous reference of they as in A – The meaning is also weird that the models who do not smile adequately give an impression, where in , the adverb adequately modifies give rather than smile
4. it is the models, in magazine advertisements, who do not smile and adequately give an impression. ---The adverb adequately is wrongly modifying give
5. in magazine advertisements, the models who do not smile adequately give an impression ; IMO, the choice sets right the wrong word order problem , by shifting the intrusive magazine ads as a prepositional introducer. Hence most acceptable;

According to a recent study linking high social standing to a habitually stern facial expression, models who do not smile adequately in magazine advertisements give an impression of status and exclusivity, even if they are not wealthy or influential themselves.

models who do not smile adequately in magazine advertisements give an impression
models in magazine advertisements who do not smile give an impression adequately
models who do not smile in magazine advertisements adequately give an impression
it is the models, in magazine advertisements, who do not smile and adequately give an impression
in magazine advertisements, the models who do not smile adequately give an impression


I got it wrong. But, I think now I understand why C is better than A.
Meaning is the main issue here. In the non-underlined part we have even if they are not wealthy or influential themselves - this implies we need some contrast in the underlined portion.

In A, adequately modifies smile, but in C, adequately modifies give.
Meaning implied by A: Although not wealthy themselves, models, who do not smile satisfactorily, give an impression of status and exclusivity.
Meaning implied by C: Although not wealthy themselves, models, who do not smile, satisfactorily give an impression of status and exclusivity.

C gives a much more logical meaning than does A. The contrast between being not wealthy and satisfactorily giving an impression of status is clear in choice C.

Thanks.

The problem with A:
1. The passage intends to say that the models who do not smile at all or who do not smile even for a second in their commercial postures adequately give a picture of elitism and exclusivity. The combining of do not smile and adequately is a water-down from the original intent. Therefore, it is wrong to say smile adequately
Grammar: adequately is an adverb as many have already noted. In most cases, adverbs modify a verb that comes after it. This is more a custom than a rule and that is the reason 'adequately give' is more appropriate. However, the more worrisome issue here is the intrusion of the prepositional phrase in between the adverb 'adequately' and the verb 'give'.

Hi mehulsayani,

Thank you for your question.

For this sentence, the most noticeable difference in each answer is the placement of the adverb "adequately." In this case, it should be modifying the verb "give," which means "adequately" needs to be placed directly before or after "give." So let's see if we can narrow down answers that put the adverb "adequately" with the wrong thing:

A: models who do not smile adequately in magazine advertisements give an impression
"Adequately" is modifying "smile," so this is WRONG.

B: models in magazine advertisements who do not smile give an impression adequately
"Adequately" is modifying the right thing, but it's not directly next to the word "give," so let's rule this out as WRONG too.

C: models who do not smile in magazine advertisements adequately give an impression
"Adequately" is next the the verb "give," which is OK, so let's keep this one for later.

D: it is the models, in magazine advertisements, who do not smile and adequately give an impression
"Adequately" is right next to the verb "give," which is OK, so let's keep this one too.

E: in magazine advertisements, the models who do not smile adequately give an impression
"Adequately" is placed directly between "smile" and "give," which makes it unclear which verb it's supposed to be tied to. Placing an adverb between two verbs is WRONG because it's unclear.

So, based on this first problem, we can rule out answers A, B, & E. Now that we're left with only two answers - C & D - let's break down which one is the better answer. What I like to do here is read through each option plugged into the original sentence:

C: According to a recent study linking high social standing to a habitually stern facial expression, models who do not smile in magazine advertisements adequately give an impression of status and exclusivity, even if they are not wealthy or influential themselves.

This is the CORRECT answer because it places the adverb "adequately" in the right place, and it is clear that it's discussing only a portion of all magazine models (just the ones who don't smile), not all of them.

D: According to a recent study linking high social standing to a habitually stern facial expression, it is the models, in magazine advertisements, who do not smile and adequately give an impression of status and exclusivity, even if they are not wealthy or influential themselves.

This is INCORRECT because by moving the phrase "in magazine advertisements" to between commas, it now changes the meaning. This sentence is saying that ALL models don't smile and give an impression of status and exclusivity - the fact that they're in magazine advertisements isn't important because it's between commas. We know that not ALL models do this, so it's not a true statement.

To better clear up the issue of which verb "adequately" is modifying for both dexerash and lotus:

The word "adequately" means "to do something well enough/okay." These two statement have totally different meanings if you move the word "adequately." Here is why it should be with "give" and not "smile":

A: models who do not smile adequately in magazine advertisements give an impression

This phrase translates to: models who don't smile well enough give off an impression of status and exclusivity. This doesn't really make sense. Being bad at smiling is not why they give off that impression - not smiling at all is how they do it.

C: models who do not smile in magazine advertisements adequately give an impression

This phrase translates to: models who don't smile at all do a good job of giving off an impression of status and exclusivity. This makes a lot more sense - it keeps the positive adverb with the positive action, not the negative one.

I hope that helps clear up why C is the better answer!

Interesting debate here, but for once I actually agree with the OA.

Primarily, "adequately" can not modify "smile" because it would counter what we want to express, that not smiling at all is preferable. We want to express that the models "adequately keep a stern facial expression".

In C, one can argue that "they" is ambiguous. But its more than obvious that advertisements cant be either wealthy or influential. So in a purely lexical sense, "they" is not at all ambiguous. It is way more important that we keep "adequately" away from "smile".

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EmpowerGMAT: IF C is the correct option, can you justify how “they” in the non underlined part resolves pronoun ambiguity by referring to models and not magazines ??

Modified version of this question is HERE.

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