Усилители в сравнительных конструкциях

См. стр. 140 comparison (6) much, far etc with comparatives and superlatives ( Practical English Usage Michael Swan).

Со степенями сравнения употребляются различные наречия.

very не используется со сравнительной степенью.
Используются much, far, very, very much, (a lot, lots — разг.) any, no, rather, a little, a bit and even.
Превосходная степень может употребляться со словами much и by far и с другими наречиями.

Do the exercise. Сheck yourself with the key. Variants are possible.

1.      He had married a woman *** *** younger than himself.
2.      I can’t walk *** farther.
3.      This melon is *** the ripest of the lot.
4.      She is *** the best executive in the company.
5.      In England shops close *** too often and *** too early.
6.      She was *** the camp’s best swimmer.
7.      She was *** the smartest student
8.      They are *** the best students in the class.
9.      Henry’s room is *** bigger than mine.
10.  These shoes are *** more comfortable.
11.  Tell them it is ***, *** worse.
12.  The Queen has always liked Fergie and gets on ***  better with her than she does with her other daughter-in-law, Princess Diana.
13.  Some gentle but firm pressure — could almost certainly have persuaded Fergie to make a ***  greater   effort to get back with Andrew.
14.  The truth is *** more simple.
15.  Although the woman was ***  bigger, she kept her wits and refused to let her take the baby.
16.  The pixel size of the TV-scanned image is *** larger than the pixel size generated by a drum scanner.
17.  Microwaves have wavelengths *** longer than the thermal IR.
18.  That is to say, the acoustic evidence for the word seemed to be *** weaker when the semantic evidence for it was stronger.
19.  The result was that we were *** more competitive in the second-half. »
20.  There are now *** more manifestations of this shared responsibility.
21.  The main attraction of B&B is that it has always been *** cheaper than hotels and this is still the case.
22.  I can run ***  faster than you.
23.  Men take *** longer in the supermarket than women.
24.  We’re playing *** better under the new coach.
25.  The merger has created *** problems than it has solved.
26.  Children generally feel *** more confident working in groups.
27.  It was *** more expensive than I had expected.
28.  He finds physics *** more difficult than other science subjects.

Check yourself with the KEY