5 exercises — choosing and placing adverbs of manner, degree, frequency, and time: "increasingly", "significantly", "by default", "heavily" in technical documentation.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
A developer writes: "The system _____ relies on synchronous API calls, which creates latency." Which adverb of frequency best signals an established but not absolute pattern?
Heavily is an adverb of degree (not frequency) that signals the system depends significantly on synchronous calls — it does not claim an absolute "always" but conveys strong reliance. In technical writing, degree adverbs like heavily, significantly, predominantly, largely, primarily are more precise than absolute frequency adverbs. "Always" implies no exceptions, which is rarely true of software systems and can be misleading in documentation. "Never" contradicts the sentence meaning. "Currently" is an adverb of time, not degree — it would change the sentence to mean the pattern exists now but may change. The sentence is describing degree of reliance, so a degree adverb is correct.
2 / 5
A performance report states: "Query execution time has _____ increased over the past month." Where should this adverb be placed?
After the past participle is the most natural position: "has increased significantly." Adverbs of degree with the present/past perfect typically go after the past participle rather than between the auxiliary and main verb. However, in British English the position between auxiliary and past participle is also acceptable: "has significantly increased" — so option A is preferred but C is not grammatically wrong. Option B (sentence-initial) is very unusual for degree adverbs and sounds odd. Option D (final position after an adverbial phrase) is less common and slightly awkward. In technical reports, the most natural and idiomatic choice for degree adverbs in perfect tenses is: has/have + past participle + adverb.
3 / 5
An API reference states: "The endpoint returns the cached result _____ if the cache TTL has not expired." Which adverb is correct?
By default is the correct adverbial phrase. In API and system documentation, "by default" means "unless configured otherwise" — it precisely conveys that this is the standard behaviour that applies unless overridden. "The endpoint returns the cached result by default if the cache TTL has not expired" is standard API documentation phrasing. "Always" would mean there are no exceptions — but the condition "if the TTL has not expired" already introduces an exception. "Automatically" focuses on the mechanism (no manual trigger), not on it being a default. "Frequently" implies it happens often but not always — inappropriate for describing default behaviour.
4 / 5
A database migration guide states: "As data volumes grow, NoSQL solutions become _____ attractive for write-heavy workloads." Which adverb best indicates a progressive change?
Increasingly is the correct adverb here because it signals a gradual, progressive change over time — as data grows, the attractiveness grows proportionally. This is a common pattern in technical analysis: "X becomes increasingly important/viable/necessary as Y scales.""Very" and "quite" are static degree adverbs — they describe a current state, not a change. "Particularly" means "especially" and introduces a specific context, not a progressive trend. In technical writing comparing approaches across scales (microservices vs monolith, SQL vs NoSQL, synchronous vs async), "increasingly" is the idiomatic choice to signal that the relationship changes as a variable grows.
5 / 5
A technical blog post argues: "The new garbage collector performs _____ better under sustained load than the previous version." Which adverb is most precise for a benchmark report?
Significantly is the correct choice for a benchmark or performance comparison. It conveys a meaningful, measurable, non-trivial improvement — exactly the precision required in technical reports. In performance analysis, "significantly better" implies the difference is large enough to be statistically or practically meaningful. "Very" is informal and vague — it adds emphasis but no technical precision. "So" requires a comparison clause: "so much better that…" — on its own it sounds incomplete. "Really" is informal/conversational and inappropriate in a technical blog post or benchmark report. The adverb hierarchy in formal technical English: significantly > considerably > substantially > markedly > noticeably > slightly.