Besides adding complementary flavors to many foods, hot sauces stim

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!!
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Nice catch. "just as x does" is used to compare action. If I add this to your explanation then all clear.

Like is used to compare nouns
Like Tolstoy, Rousseau blah blah
Like x, y etc
Like his brother, James graduated at the head of his class.

Here we are comparing the action w/ action, so B is wrong. To make B correct I will have to modify the sentence little bit
B. hot sauces stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, like exercise, and they
have a pain-relieving effect that is like morphine ---> old B
B. hot sauces, like exercise stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, and they
have a pain-relieving effect that is like morphine ----------> modified B. But then "they" is ambiguous now. So I have to really work hard to fix B.

Hope I make some sense!

Good question
"these" is a pronoun and plural of "this". In choice A : "these" is used as a replacement pronoun (not adjective). Pls refer to post - gmax-challenge-question-95398.html?highlight=gmax

According to MGMAT Demonstrative pronouns (This, That, These, Those) act as adjectives and need to be attached to a noun.
Ex: I like these shoes.
An exception is "That and Those" can act as a noun if they are acting as a copy of another noun--in this scenario the demonstrative pronoun must be modified to indicate how it is different from the original copy. ------> I think it means sometimes they DO NOT PHYSICALLY TOUCH
Ex: I love my shoes, but I hate those of my neighbor

I hope I make some sense

Well B wont be correct answer choice since the sentence begins with :
Besides adding complementary flavors to many foods, hot sauces stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain
which means hot sauces also add flavors to many foods and also releases endorphins...by just saying "like exercise" it would mean exercise also adds flavors to many foods... which is incorrect...

In A, we have " just as exercise does" .... for the stimulating related sentence which makes it logical..

Hence although B sounds correct, inaccordance with Like rule of manhattan SC .... its not logical...
That is my explanation...

I would go with A...

Option A is best B distorts the meaning

Just a question towards the end of the sentence...

hot sauces stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, just as exercise does, and these have a pain-relieving effect like morphine's ( morphine's pain relieving effect is implied)

Noboru,

Read the explanation from Ron.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/bes ... t3219.html

Besides adding complementary flavors to many foods, hot sauces stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, just as exercise does, and these have a pain-relieving effect like morphine's.

A. hot sauces stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, just as exercise does, and these have a pain-relieving effect like morphine's -> Looks fine

B. hot sauces stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, like exercise, and they have a pain-relieving effect that is like morphine -> Wrong comparison
The comparison is
Sauces stimulate the release of endomorphins as exercise stimulate the release of endomorphins
Sauces stimulate the release of endomorphins as Sauces stimulate the release of exercise

C. hot sauces and exercise both stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, and they have a pain-relieving effect like morphine -> pain relieving effect is compared with Morphine. It should pain relieving effect should be compared with pain relieving effect of Morphine.

D. the release of endorphins in the brain is stimulated both by hot sauces and exercise, and they have a pain-relieving effect like morphine's
Subject is "Release of Endorphines" and we have an "and" so the they should refer to the subject.

E. the release of endorphins in the brain is stimulated by hot sauces, just as with exercise, and these have a pain-relieving effect like that of morphine
Wrong comparison.

I have a problem with understanding why 'A' is the correct answer. 'These' cannot stand alone: it must be followed by a noun entity. 'These' can correctly refer to either hot sauces or endorphins.

Hi GmatNinja,
Another problem with choice A is comparison is illegal. these (hot sauces) need to be compared with morphin. ( noun to noun comparison). what does morphine's stand for. If morphine's refer to pain relieving effect then we are comparing hot sauces with morphin's pain relieving effect. Kindly confirm if my understanding is correct or not.

Option a- Besides adding complementary flavors to many foods, hot sauces stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, just as exercise does, and these have a pain-relieving effect like morphine's

in og2020, there is also a question, in which "this' as a stand alone pronoun is in official answer. here "these" is in OA.
the conclusion is that gmat consider "this/these" inferior but not incorrect. so, dont eliminate a choice with "this/these" imediately. this is not hard and fast rule point. this is optimum game

I mean man ... this guys must have some sort of black belt for literature or something. You're concentrated. You're reading closely to justify your assumptions or find out what's wrong with them but the suddenly ... you come across a comment of GMATNinja : "I don't remember seeing this question before though the brain cell storing that particular memory might have died in a tragic bourbon accident. You burst out laughing alone or in front of others, but you're too lonely or it is too awkward and geeky to explain to somebody else what you've been up. Not least, you finish off with another bombshell: Ron Purewal said that he was "seething" at the use of "these" in (A). Fun choice of words on his part. You realise that you're not alone after all ...

Absolutely love your comments and thanks for good atmosphere in the forum

Main Issues

1) Modifier
2) Comparison

(A) hot sauces stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, just as exercise does, and these have a pain-relieving effect like morphine's - Correct

(B) hot sauces stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, like exercise, and they have a pain-relieving effect that is like morphine - Wrong: 1) 2 Comparison issues

(C) hot sauces and exercise both stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, and they have a pain-relieving effect like morphine - Wrong: 1) Modifier issue 2) Comparison 3) Meaning: "they"

(D) the release of endorphins in the brain is stimulated both by hot sauces and exercise, and they have a pain-relieving effect like morphine's - Wrong: 1) Modifier 2) Parallelism 3) Meaning: "they"

(E) the release of endorphins in the brain is stimulated by hot sauces, just as with exercise, and these have a pain-relieving effect like that of morphine - Wrong: 1) Modifier 2) Meaning: "these"

A

Modifier = hot sauces placed perfectly after modifier

Comparison - Like exercise does is better comparison

Tense - These is used better as compare to they

In this option , how does the second comparison work ?

These ( hot sauces) have a pain relieving effect (that is) like morphine's ( effect) ?

The words within the brackets have been omitted ?
Am i correct ?

GMATNinja GMATNinjaTwo

To figure out what “these” could be referring to, let's simplify the sentence:

“Hot sauces stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, and these have a pain-relieving effect like morphine’s (effect).”

(Mmm... hot sauce. )

Because we know that the noun has to be plural, we technically have two options for what "these" could be referring to: either the “hot sauces” or the “endorphins.” At first glance, the distinction seems a bit ambiguous because in this case both the hot sauces and endorphins could be said to have a pain-relieving effect (though I don't recommend pouring hot sauce into an open wound -- it makes the wound taste better, but isn't necessarily worth it).

Nonetheless, “these” seems to refer to “endorphins” for the following reasons:

1) Usually “these” as a pronoun should point to the closest noun, which in this case is “endorphins.”
2) Because “hot sauces” is the subject of the first part of the sentence, we would probably just see the pronoun "they" if the sauces were also the subject of the second part of the sentence. In that case, we probably wouldn't need to specify which noun is the subject by using the pronoun "these." In fact, we actually wouldn't even need to use a pronoun at all: “hot sauces stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain, and [they] have a pain-relieving effect…”

So the sentence structure suggests that “these” refers to “endorphins.” If you aren't convinced, don't worry: this distinction shouldn't affect your analysis much at all.

For more on this admittedly questionable use of "these" as a pronoun, check out this post.
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As for option B, I am confused about how to use 'like' to make a comparision. How to tell we are comparing the action not the noun?
In my opinion, “Like his brother, James graduated at the head of his class.” is not correct. Because we are comparing the action'graduation' done by his brother and James, so the correct version should be"As his brother did, James graduated at the head of his class."?
Please tell me where I am wrong, thanks a lot!

That's a fair point, since there is an implied action for "brother" here. But since you are NOT explicitly comparing two noun+verb pairs (i.e. "Like his brother was valedictorian, James graduated at the head of his class."), it's okay to use "like" to compare the two nouns ("brother" and "James").

Even in your second example, notice that you naturally added "did" to make sure "brother" had a verb, thus ensuring that the "as" was comparing two clauses with different verbs.

I hope that helps a bit!
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