make an effort

[Daruma]

Hello.

A) I'm working hard to get my MBA.
B) I'm making an effort to get my MBA.
C) I'm making a lot of effort to get my MBA.

I'm sure that sentence A sounds natural. What about the others?

[dragn]

A) I'm working hard to get my MBA.
B) I'm making an effort to get my MBA.
C) I'm making a lot of effort to get my MBA.

You're right about A--that's the most natural sentence. B is also correct, but sounds a little weak. You can say you are making an effort to do st; however, it just doesn't sound to me as if you're trying quite as hard as you are in A. Maybe others have a different take on it, but to me it sounds weaker than A. C sounds odd to me; I would never say it that way. With the verb make, we tend to use effort in a countable (and singular) sense; that is, make an effort. We don't tend to say make effort or make efforts, at least not in a positive sentence. We might use make with uncountable effort in a negative sentence: "Tom didn't make any effort to change the boss's mind." It might also be used in a question: "Did you make any effort to change the boss's mind?"

Greg