Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Chan-Seung Lee]

[redset]

Hardly actually is an adverbial form of hard, so the sentence is the same as 'the students work not only hard but also effectively', but that looks a little awkward to me. Think of it as meaning the same as 'the students not only work hard, but also work effectively' but being written to use work once and contrast the adverbs more neatly.

But people almost never use hardly in this way, so I thought the same as you at first . If in doubt, look at a dictionary and see if any of the meanings seem to make sense in the context!