<p>I don't get it.</p>
<p>Silverturtle's example was:</p>
<p>"I only ate one meal the entire time" vs "I ate only one meal the entire time"</p>
<p>It sounds like it means the same..</p>
<p>Adverbs describe verbs. In the second sentence, it looks the adverb is describing the noun. That’s the only problem i see with this…Had it appeared on the May SAT though — I would’ve been screwed.</p>
<p>This is how I understand it:</p>
<p>In the first sentence, I only ATE one meal - I didn’t do anything else with it.</p>
<p>In the second sentence, I ate only ONE meal, not two or more.</p>
<p>@Maine, hah that makes sense. I have never seen collegeboard use this though.</p>
<p>Sorry, but what do you mean that you didn’t do anything else with it? How did you interpret it that way??</p>
<p>I mean that in the first sentence, the word “only” refers to the word “ate.” So I ate it, but I didn’t juggle it, tickle it, contemplate it, etc.</p>
<p>In the second sentence, the word “only” refers to the word “one.” So I ate ONE meal, not more.</p>
<p>My 11th grade English teacher drilled this rule and and a bunch of others into our heads. Thank goodness!</p>
<p>Thanks for explaining MainLonghorn! (:</p>