Hi
Could you please tell me how you find the use of “averagely well” in the following sentence? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
1- He did averagely well in the examination.
Tom
Hi,
This sounds to me like a typical teacher type comment from someone who is sitting on the fence and not being very decisive.
A
“Averagely well” sounds bizarre to me. I have never heard it, and I can’t really imagine it being said in my environment. It’s not grammatically wrong, but it’s weird.
Many, many thanks to you people.
…then how should I say it? :shock:
1- He did _________________? (average or averagely?)
Thanks again
Tom
Hi Tom
Here are some ideas. Which one fits? (No fence-sitting allowed.) 
He did well on the exam(ination).
He did quite well on the exam.
His score on the exam was average.
His score on the exam was slightly above average.
His score on the exam was better than average.
[size=84]Personally, I’d probably go for the first one…[/size]
One thing we should bear in mind, though, is that saying he did well or quite well sounds as though his results were above average, which is not what Tom would like to convey, as I understand it.
I agree with Jamie that “averagely well” sounds very weird. I’m also not entirely sure precisely what level of “good” Tom wishes to convey. When I was in school, “good” was considered “average”. Above average was “very good”. And top marks were called “excellent”. Saying that someone “did well” is somewhat ambiguous, but sounds positive. That’s why I’d choose that one.
As I see it, it’s up to Tom to either tell us more precisely what he means, pick one of the alternatives already offered, or come up with another alternative of his own.
By the way, I wonder how the word ‘quite’ would be interpreted in BE – i.e. whether variations on the intonation of the word would make a significant difference or not.
Yes, it often does. It also seems to depend on whether the adjectives are gradable or not.
There’s a good article about this here:
A British colleague once informed me that a Brit might say that something is either (1) “quite good” or (2) “quite good”.
The difference was explained to me this way:
With the stress on quite (1), it would mean “only moderately good or acceptable”.
But with the stress on good (2), it would mean “very good” – i.e. better than (1).
In American English, however, saying ‘quite good’ only means ‘very good’.
By the way, Tom, here’s another one for you:
He did moderately well on the exam. 
(That is similar to your original sentence, but much more natural.)
He did a fair-to-middlin’ job on the exam.
hehe