honchos wrote:
Many of us complain about rising fuel prices, but a measure-for-measure comparison is sobering: a coffee cup of gas costs roughly 10% of a latte.
1. a coffee cup of gas costs roughly 10% of a latte
2. a coffee cup of gas costs roughly 10% what a latte does
3. a coffee cup of gas costs roughly 10% as compared to a latte
4. the cost of a coffee cup of gas is roughly 10% of a latte
5. the cost of a coffee cup of gas is roughly 10% as compared to a latte
Can any Expert Explain this?
Dear
honchos,
Because of your p.m., I will respond, even though there already are some excellent responses above.

BTW, the choices in a high quality GMAT SC should be (A) - (E), not (1) - (5).
Whether the beginning is
"a cup of coffees costs" or "
the cost of a cup of coffee is", what follows must be a price. For example, both of the following would be grammatically & logically correct.
(i)
A cup of coffees costs $5.00.(ii)
The cost of a cup of coffee is $5.00. Of course, in this sentence, we are not given a dollar amount --- what the sentence is trying to say is that the price is 1/10 of the price of a latte. Once I saw that the beginning of the sentence required a price at the end, I just scanned the endings looking for something that constitutes a legitimate dollar-amount price
(A) &
(D) .....
10% of a latte --- that's a quantity of liquid, not a price
(B) .....
what a latte does ---- here, the "substitute verb" "
does" stands in for the verb at the beginning of the sentence, "costs", and "
what a latte costs" is a legitimate dollar-amount price. This works. Incidentally, on this grammatical structure, see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/repeating- ... -the-gmat/In
(C) &
(E), the "as compared to a latte" structure is problematic. We could logically say "
As compared to a latte, a coffee cup of gasoline is more/less". The structure "
10% as compared to ..." is particular ambiguous ---- 10% more? less? of? This structure is a grammatical and logical trainwreck, so these two answers are incorrect.
The only answer that works is
(B).
I really like this question. It is a high quality question with a clear right answer and good tempting wrong answers. It's not the first time that I have been impressed with a Veritas question.
BTW, re: the content --- I remember seeing an email, about a decade ago --- "
Do you think the price of gas is high?" ---- then they listed a number of other common liquids ---- juice, salad dressing, Starbucks, beer, wine, etc., typical prices in units of cost/gallon, and they were all more than the price of gas; the topper of the list was some Britney Spears perfume that cost something like $80/ounce, so its price per gallon was well over $1000!!
Mike

But I can`t find 'a cup' part at the right side.