Stimulants, such as caffeine, can eliminate pain and fatigue

[SC312]

Stimulants, such as caffeine, can eliminate pain and fatigue and enhance alertness, but, if used continuously for long periods, can cause users to develop tolerance and even addiction.

a)pain and fatigue and enhance alertness, but, if used continuously for long periods, can cause users to develop tolerance and even addiction

b)pain, fatigue, and enhanced alertness; if used continuously for long periods, though, users can develop tolerance and even addiction to them

c)pain, fatigue, and enhance alertness; people having used them continuously for long periods, though, can develop tolerance and even addiction to them

d)pain and fatigue while enhancing alertness, but, if used continuously for long periods, users can develop tolerance and even addiction to them

e)pain and fatigue, and also enhancing alertness; however, people using them continuously for long periods can develop tolerance and even addiction



The official answer given for this question is A) . Here are my 3 questions related to the correct choice A) and the choice D) that I selected.

1. Although punctuations are not tested in the GMAT, shouldn't there be a COMMA after "pain and fatigue" in the option A) ?

2. The explanation given for why D) is not correct is "The modifier if used continuously for long periods... illogically describes the subject of the following clause, which is users. In context, that modifier should describe stimulants, not users." . My question is if statements in general doesn't modify nouns and thus, can we not assume that the subject is implied in this i.e "if <stimulants are> used continuously for long periods" and therefore the if statement doesn't need to modify the noun "users".

3. Is this construction "cause users to develop" not redundant in A) ?

[jnelson0612]

Hello! To answer your questions:

1) No, because answer choice A is parallel as is. Notice the parallelism marker AND:
Stimulants can
1) eliminate pain and fatigue
AND
2) enhance alertness

I have two present tense verbs joined by this AND: eliminate and enhance. Perfect as is!

2) One of the GMAT's favorite incorrect structures is to have a long opening noun modifier with the incorrect noun sitting right after the modifier. While the incorrect structure in D may make sense to us, as we can understand the implied noun being modified by this phrase, in grammar this is incorrect.

A good rule to follow is when you see a phrase describing a noun, make sure that the noun is sitting right next to that phrase. If it is not the answer is incorrect.

In answer choice D, we have:
"if used continuously for long periods, users"

"if used continuously for long periods" is clearly describing "stimulants", which MUST sit right next to the modifying phrase. Anything else is incorrect.

3. Not in my opinion. Tell me more about how you think it's redundant and how you would phrase the sentence instead.

[SudhanshuK453]

Hello! To answer your questions:

1) No, because answer choice A is parallel as is. Notice the parallelism marker AND:
Stimulants can
1) eliminate pain and fatigue
AND
2) enhance alertness

I have two present tense verbs joined by this AND: eliminate and enhance. Perfect as is!

2) One of the GMAT's favorite incorrect structures is to have a long opening noun modifier with the incorrect noun sitting right after the modifier. While the incorrect structure in D may make sense to us, as we can understand the implied noun being modified by this phrase, in grammar this is incorrect.

A good rule to follow is when you see a phrase describing a noun, make sure that the noun is sitting right next to that phrase. If it is not the answer is incorrect.

In answer choice D, we have:
"if used continuously for long periods, users"

"if used continuously for long periods" is clearly describing "stimulants", which MUST sit right next to the modifying phrase. Anything else is incorrect.

3. Not in my opinion. Tell me more about how you think it's redundant and how you would phrase the sentence instead.

Hi. I have never seen the ,but, contruction as in A. Isn't this wrong? Shouldn't this just be but if used in ...

[Chelsey Cooley]

Let's break down that sentence to try to figure out where the ", but," is coming from.

Stimulants, such as caffeine, can eliminate pain and fatigue and enhance alertness, but, if used continuously for long periods, can cause users to develop tolerance and even addiction.

The view from 20,000 feet here is that the sentence is discussing stimulants. Specifically, the first half of the sentence tells us something positive about stimulants, then the second half tells us something negative about stimulants. In order to convey this, the GMAT uses a very common sort of parallel structure, where we have a subject, and then two verb phrases that go with it and are joined together with a conjunction. For example:

The cat likes me, but hates my sister.

You can do something called "rotating the list" here, to confirm that everything makes sense. What you do is split up the parallel part of the sentence, and make sure that each part of it makes sense independently. So, for the example above, we'd have:

The cat likes me
the cat hates my sister

Both of those are totally fine, so the parallelism is good.

In the tougher example, when we split up the parallelism, we have this:

Stimulants, such as caffeine, can eliminate pain and fatigue and enhance alertness.
Stimulants, if used continuously for long periods, can cause users to develop tolerance and even addiction.

Are those both okay? In the first one, "such as caffeine" is a modifier that correctly modifies "stimulants". In the second one, "if used continuously for long periods" is another modifier that, again, correctly modifies "stimulants". That means that the parallelism itself is good. Everything else (such as agreement, etc.) also seems correct.

So, where does the ", but," come from? Well, the first comma there is one of those weird optional commas that we sometimes use before conjunctions when the two phrases being conjoined are very long. (By the way, this is one reason the GMAT doesn't test commas - a lot of comma usage is either contentious or optional.) Check out the "cat" example for a comma being used in the same way before "but".

The second comma, after "but", is actually just the first of two commas that go around the modifier "if used continuously..."

In short: it's not quite right to talk about the structure ", but," as being correct or incorrect, because it isn't really a structure on its own. Those commas both come from other grammatical rules, and as long as those rules are being applied correctly, even if what you end up with looks sort of weird, it must be right.

[PrakharS433]

Hello! To answer your questions:

1) No, because answer choice A is parallel as is. Notice the parallelism marker AND:
Stimulants can
1) eliminate pain and fatigue
AND
2) enhance alertness

I have two present tense verbs joined by this AND: eliminate and enhance. Perfect as is!

2) One of the GMAT's favorite incorrect structures is to have a long opening noun modifier with the incorrect noun sitting right after the modifier. While the incorrect structure in D may make sense to us, as we can understand the implied noun being modified by this phrase, in grammar this is incorrect.

A good rule to follow is when you see a phrase describing a noun, make sure that the noun is sitting right next to that phrase. If it is not the answer is incorrect.

In answer choice D, we have:
"if used continuously for long periods, users"

"if used continuously for long periods" is clearly describing "stimulants", which MUST sit right next to the modifying phrase. Anything else is incorrect.

3. Not in my opinion. Tell me more about how you think it's redundant and how you would phrase the sentence instead.

Hi Ron / Stacey


First, I would like to share explanation given by MGMAT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sentence juxtaposes certain positive and negative effects of stimulants. There are two positive effects cited—(a) the elimination of pain and fatigue, and (b) the enhancement of alertness. On the other hand, negative effects—the development of tolerance and/or addiction—are also cited.

The two positive effects should appear in a parallel structure. The sentence should also use a proper transition to express the contrast between the positive and negative effects. Finally, the sentence must use modifiers accurately; specifically, “if used continuously…” must properly refer to the stimulants themselves, not to their users.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) how could the "development of tolerance" be the negative effect. IMO its positive effect
If a person has good tolerance power than I think it a good thing..... Please correct my reasoning if wrong.

I would like to discuss between A and D
I opted for wrong option D

A. pain and fatigue and enhance alertness, but, if used continuously for long periods, can cause users to develop tolerance and even addiction.
D. pain and fatigue while enhancing alertness, but, if used continuously for long periods, users can develop tolerance and even addiction to them.

After opted for wrong option D, I realized that word eliminate and enhance must be parallel. So we are only left with option A and C.

Apart from this I want to discuss the usage of can develop VS to develop
I eliminated A because of usage to develop

to develop---> shows INTENTION. It means users are drinking coffee for long periods as they WANT to develop tolerance and even addiction.
IMO, this should not be the intended meaning of sentence, that's why I eliminated A.

Does parallelism supersede intention (to + verb)..??

Please assist, why to develop is correct.

Thanks and Regards,
Prakhar

[JbhB682]

Hi Tutors,

---- Just wondering, based on the reds only - can anyone be eliminated because of incorrect punctuation or the parallelism issues perhaps re: lists.... i think the following can be eliminated --- please let me know your thoughts ?

D--- eliminate X while enhancing Y : eliminate because one verb is simple present and the other one is "ing" -- hence not parallel
E -- eliminate X and also enhancing Y : eliminate because one verb is simple present and the other one is "ing" -- hence not parallel
B -- eliminate X and also enhanced Y : eliminate because one verb is simple present and the other one is "ed" -- hence not parallel

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stimulants, such as caffeine, can eliminate pain and fatigue and enhance alertness, but, if used continuously for long periods, can cause users to develop tolerance and even addiction.

a)pain and fatigue and enhance alertness, but, if used continuously for long periods, can cause users to develop tolerance and even addiction

b)pain, fatigue, and enhanced alertness; if used continuously for long periods, though, users can develop tolerance and even addiction to them

c) pain, fatigue, and enhance alertness; people having used them continuously for long periods, though, can develop tolerance and even addiction to them

d) pain and fatigue while enhancing alertness, but, if used continuously for long periods, users can develop tolerance and even addiction to them

e) pain and fatigue, and also enhancing alertness; however, people using them continuously for long periods can develop tolerance and even addiction

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

You're right about D and E, clearly the "and" shows that we're looking for parallelism, and the verbs don't match up. However, be careful with "while" - it's not always a parallelism marker. Consider the following (correct) sentence: "He can juggle while riding a bicycle." This is because "riding" is not actually a verb here. We should take care to note that -ing words are only verbs if they are used with some form of the verb "to be", e.g. "He is smoking." (verb), but "Smoking causes illness." (a gerund). More widely, don't get over-enthusiastic with parallelism; we need to make sure it's actually appropriate before we test for it.

[RAHULS852]

Hi Sage,

Is use of 'While" in option D right ?
While can be used in 2 ways 1. Contrast ( While tarun wrote 5 letters, I wrote 10 letters )
2. Simultaneous process ("He can juggle while riding a bicycle.)
Here use of while is 2nd type usage. It shows that stimulants can eliminate pain & fatigue during the process of enhancing alertness.


Regards,
Rahul Singh

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

No need to repost my previous post.

This is a bit of a nuance and is probably more subtle than you need for GMAT problems. However, it's a good exercise to consider how we use certain words.

I like your analysis that 'while' is used for (1) contrast and (2) things happening at the same time. However, the example above doesn't quite fit the second situation. 'Eliminating pain and fatigue' and 'enhancing alertness' are not two independent things that simply happen at the same time; they seem to be related effects of the drugs. For that reason, I'd say that 'and' is preferable here.