Question

Choose the correct adverb from the options given.
Our Mathematics teacher ___________ ever smiles.

• A. Hardly
• B. Usually
• C. Always
• D. Mostly

Answer 1

The correct option is A Hardly

In order to fill in the blank, let's understand what adverbs of frequency are. Adverbs of frequency are words that explain how often something happens. For example, 'I often visit the museum.' Here, 'often' explains that the subject goes to the museum many times.

NOTE: The word 'ever' explains that the idea of 'smiles' is negative. For example, 'Do he ever come to school?' which indirectly means that he never comes to school.

Option B - 'Usually' is an adverb, which means 'most of the times.' As we need an adverb that explains the negative idea of the sentence. 'Usually never' is used to give a negative idea and thus we can't use it with 'ever'. Hence, option B is incorrect.

Option C - 'Always' is an adverb, which means 'all the time'. It is clearly used to give a positive idea about a sentence, thus we can't use it here. Hence, option C is incorrect.

Option D - 'Mostly' is an adverb which means 'most of the time'. As explained above, we can't use an adverb that is used to give a positive idea about a sentence. Hence, option D is incorrect.

Option A - 'Hardly' is an adverb which means 'barely'. It also means 'rarely'. As it gives a negative idea about the adjective, we can use it here. Hence, option A is the correct answer.

'Our Mathematics teacher hardly ever smiles.'