JonShukhrat wrote:
Dear
IanStewart,
The officially correct answer of this problem says that “the design (itself) developed painstakingly”. I would much appreciate if you could elucidate how an inanimate thing, such as a design, can “painstakingly” develop? I have a feeling that an adverb “painstakingly” should modify actions of animate beings.
Thank you very much in advance sir.
Yes, I agree completely -- only answers B and E use the word "painstakingly" correctly. If I saw this question on a test, I'd be tempted to pick B for that reason, though it has a parallelism issue unless the word "not" is moved before the first verb (if it said "did not emerge", I think it would be fine). So I don't think there's a good answer to the original question.
daagh posted an official question above that was presumably the basis for this question, and that's the version of this question that I'd recommend studying.
In Option C also , Painstakingly is used correctly as it is used as an adverb which modifies the transit verb developed