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Great question, scrumptious829! And welcome to GMAT Club!

It's funny, I don't remember seeing this question before (though the brain cell storing that particular memory might have died in a tragic bourbon accident), and I don't really like ANY of the five answer choices... so I did some snooping around to try to confirm the source. And apparently, it's legit. The funny thing? Some incredibly smart folks at MGMAT (see the link in the posts above) looked into it in detail, and the legendary Ron Purewal said that he was "seething" at the use of "these" in (A). Fun choice of words on his part.

This sort of thing makes me crazy, too. In general, "this" and "these" can't be used as pronouns on the GMAT -- they're articles, not pronouns, in every other correct GMAT sentence I can think of. So in general, you're right, scrumptious829: "these" would need to be followed by a plural noun of some sort, if we're using other official GMAT questions as our guide. And this particular question is inconsistent with the GMAT's other examples. That's totally frustrating -- but there are TONS of examples of inconsistencies in the GMAT's application of grammar rules. This adds another to the list.

To be fair, English style and grammar experts don't necessarily have a problem with using "this" and "these" as pronouns; the idea that the GMAT doesn't use those words as pronouns is based only on retired GMAT questions, not universal rules of English. So maybe the safest thing is to say that "these" SHOULD be followed by a noun -- but that it's not an absolute rule.

And as others have pointed out, there are more severe problems in the other answer choices, so the use of "these" is a relatively minor crime in comparison.

I hope this helps!!