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Reading a book I found this sentence but cannot understand its construction. Here it is :

The media have proven highly efficient to mold public opinion.

Is it comparable to this one : The media have proven high efficiency to mold public opinion. ( is this correct"

In the first sentence : highly is an adverb, and efficient is an adjective but I cannot see wich word was described by this adjective.

Thank you.

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Highly efficient is the complement of the verb have proven. Prove, (in this sense) like become and seem can take a noun phrase or an adjective phrase as their complement.

This is different from prove meaning "demonstrate that something is correct or true" - it means "turn out" or "be discovered to be". So no, your paraphrase doesn't work, because you have made prove transitive, and it cannot have this meaning as a transitive verb.

You could insert to be after proven without changing the meaning.

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