Stress acts on people in different ways, ranging from

Question

Stress acts on people in different ways, ranging from behaving  as a depleting agent to acting as  a fuel, making the people feel alive and focused.

A) as a depleting agent to acting as
B) like a depleting agent to acting like
C) as a depleting agent to acting like
D) like a depleting agent to acting as
E) like a depleting agent to act as

Abhi077 · Answer

Hi  Raxit85

Can you please specify the source of this question?

Lucky1994 · Answer

MentorTutoring   daagh

Can you please tell me why B is incorrect?

Like is used for nouns i guess and this what the sentence conveys.
Please help

Thanks
Lakshay

AndrewN · Answer

Hello, Lakshay, and thank you for tagging me.   My vote is for (B).   You are correct in that  like  is used to compare nouns, whereas  as  compares actions, or nouns that are doing things. Here, the first comparison being made is between two nouns,  stress  and  agent . The sentence is  not  conveying that stress  behaves  as a depleting agent  behaves , since the word is  behaving  instead, any more than the woman in the following example from  this article on Grammarly  is acting as a child acts. A direct quote, colors and all:

Incorrect : Imagine a grown woman acting as a child.

Correct : Imagine a grown woman acting like a child.

Like   Abhi077  above, I would like to know the source of this question.

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

AnubhavSingh · Answer

*******************

Hi Guys,

You are correct but there's an additional point to the "use of like". It cannot be used with an "Inanimate Noun". What's that? An inanimate object is utterly devoid of intentionality, so we cannot in any way attribute imitative behavior to it and thus, we can never use the idiom “act like” or "behave like" with it.

"Stress" in this question  can not  "act" like anything because it doesn’t have the conscious ability to imitate. That's why we will use "as".

Hope this clears the doubt.

Thanks,
Anubhav.

AndrewN · Answer

Hello, Anubhav. I appreciate the way in which you presented your case above. Being an Expert, in my eyes, is about guiding members of the community to correct lines of reasoning, and in keeping with this aim, I am not afraid to put my neck on the line. I have consulted several resources on the  like  versus  as  comparison. In addition to the original reference, I have also scoured pages on  Woodward English , the  Cambridge Dictionary ,  Magoosh ,  English Grammar , and  Grammar Girl  for this "inanimate object" rule, and none of these sites mentions it. If this is a firm grammar rule that I am unaware of, then I would like to have a resource to point to to back up similar questions I might see from members down the line. If you do not mind my asking, where did you come across this rule?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts in an effort to help the community.

- Andrew

Stress acts on people in different ways, ranging from

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Stress acts on people in different ways, ranging from

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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