Question

Fill in the blanks with the most appropriate words.
The nurse is very __________. She spoke ________.
a. politely/politely
b. polite/politely
c. politely/polite
d. polite/polite

Answer 1

Hint: When we have to describe a person, we use an adjective. When we have to describe the behaviour of a person, we use an adverb.

Complete answer:
In the first sentence, a word is required to describe the nurse. Therefore, we need to use an adjective. An adjective is a describing word. The adjective given is polite. Therefore, the first blank will be filled with the word polite.
In the second part of the sentence, we can see that the word is to be used to describe the manner of speaking of the nurse. Someone’s manner of speaking is intangible. To describe intangible things, we use adverbs. The word politely is an adverb. Thus, the second blank will be filled with the adverb politely.
Thus, the correct sequence will be polite/politely, which is given in option b. Option b is the correct answer.
Some other examples of using adjectives and adverbs are as follows:
‘She is beautiful. She sang beautifully.’ The word beautiful is describing a person while the adverb beautifully is describing the way she sang.
‘The Japanese are very efficient workers. They work very efficiently’. As we can see, the adjective is describing the Japanese workers as being efficient. Their manner of working has been described with the adverb ‘efficiently’.

Note: Adverbs are words which usually end with the suffix ‘-ly’. Thus, words like bravely, casually, softly, loudly, etc. are adverbs. However, it is not true in all cases. The adverb of the adjective ‘good’ is ‘well’.