In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nine

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that electricity was in less than one percent of homes, and in these homes, lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Tenses + Parallelism

• Any elements linked by a conjunction (“and” in this sentence) must be parallel.
• “where” is only used to refer to a physical place.
• “being” is only to be used when it is part of a noun phrase or represents the passive continuous verb tense; the use of passive continuous must be justified in the context.
• The introduction of present participle ("verb+ing"- “having” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.
• Past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
• Past perfect continuous tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had/have been") is used when a sentence contains two actions in past and one action is in greater past as well as continuous in nature; the helping verb "had been" is used with the action that is in the greater past and continuous in nature.

A: Correct. This answer choice correctly modifies “one percent of homes” with “where lighting...gas”, conveying the intended meaning – that electricity was in less than one percent of homes, and in these homes, lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas. Further, Option A forms a complete sentence; the object “lighting” is acted upon by the active verb “was...provided” to form an independent thought, leading to a complete sentence. Additionally, Option A correctly uses the simple past tense verbs “was” and “was…provided” to refer to events that concluded in the past. Moreover, Option A maintains parallelism between the clauses “electricity was in less than one percent of homes” and “where lighting...gas”. Besides, Option A is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

B:This answer choice leads to an incomplete sentence; the phrase “and lighting still provided mainly by candles or gas” lacks an active verb to act upon the subject “lighting”, as “provided” is a past participle rather than an active verb. Further, Option B fails to maintain parallelism between the clause “electricity was in less than one percent of homes” and the phrase “lighting still provided mainly by candles or gas”; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction (“and” in this sentence) must be parallel.

C: This answer choice incorrectly refers to "electricity" with "where"; please remember, "where" is only used to refer to physical places. Further, Option C incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb “had been to refer to an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is only used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past". Additionally, Option C uses the word “being”, rendering it awkward and needlessly wordy; please remember, “being” is only to be used when it is part of a noun phrase or represents the passive continuous verb tense; the use of passive continuous must be justified in the context.

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “having lighting that was still...gas”; the use of the “comma + present participle (“verb+ing” – “having” in this sentence)” construction incorrectly implies that less than one percent of homes had electricity because, in these homes, lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas; the intended meaning is that less than one percent of homes had electricity, and in these homes, lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.; please remember, the introduction of the present participle ("verb+ing"- “having” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.

E: This answer choice incorrectly refers to "electricity" with "where"; please remember, "where" is only used to refer to physical places. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the past perfect continuous tense verb “had still been provided” to refer to an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past, and the past perfect continuous tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had/have been") is only used when a sentence contains two actions in past and one action is in greater past as well as continuous in nature; the helping verb "had been" is used with the action that is in the greater past and continuous in nature.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the concept of "Perfect Continuous Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the use of "Being" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one thing at a time, and narrow it down to the right choice quickly! To begin, let's take a quick look at the question and highlight any major differences in orange:

In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century, important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting, but electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.

(A) electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still
(B) electricity was in less than one percent of homes and lighting still
(C) there had been less than 1 percent of homes with electricity, where lighting was still being
(D) there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity, having lighting that was still
(E) less than one percent of homes had electricity, where lighting had still been

While there are a lot of things we could focus on, there are 2 major ones that jump out:

1. was/had been/had
2. was still/still/was still being/was still/had still been

Since both of these deal with verbs, let's start our focus there. If we look at the entire sentence, we can gather clues as to which verb tense we'll need to use:

In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century, important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting, but electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.

The events go in a certain order, which requires certain verb tenses:

Public spaces install electric lighting --> electricity is in less than 1 percent of homes + lighting is still done by candles and gas

The earliest event (public spaces install electric lighting) needs to use past perfect "had installed," which it does. The other two events happen later, AND AT THE SAME TIME, so they both need to use past tense. They should also be written using parallel structure. Let's see which options handle this correctly, and eliminate the ones that don't:

(A) electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still provided --> OK
(B) electricity was in less than one percent of homes and lighting still provided --> WRONG (needs to have the verb "was" in front of "provided" to work.)
(C) there had been less than 1 percent of homes with electricity, where lighting was still being provided --> WRONG
(D) there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity, having lighting that was still provided --> OK
(E) less than one percent of homes had electricity, where lighting had still been provided --> WRONG

We can eliminate options B, C, & E because they use the wrong verb formats or don't use parallel structure. Now that we have it narrowed down to only 2 options, let's take a closer look at each option with the non-underlined part attached and look for problems:

(A) In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century, important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting, but electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.

This is CORRECT! By starting the modifier with the word "where," it modifies the noun directly before it, which is homes. This makes perfect sense! It also uses the proper verb tenses throughout to indicate the correct order of events.

(D) In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century, important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting, but there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity, having lighting that was still provided mainly by candles or gas.

This is INCORRECT because it includes an -ing modifier that's being used incorrectly. The -ing modifier must modify the main subject and verb of the previous clause, and in this case it's trying to modify the phrase "there was." It SHOULD modify the word "homes," but it would need to be reworded into a different type of modifier for that to work.


There you have it - option A was correct all along!


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.

IMO A

(wrong past perfect construction)

The un-underlined portion of the sentence has "had" (.........banks had installed electric). Hence this sentence has to have the correct past perfect construction. had in the first activity means that the second activity has to have a simple past tese and only in A. do we see the simple past tense.

Hello aviejay,

Thank you for the PM.

Here are my explanations for your well-articulated queries.




See, it is not that important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks all installed electricity at the end of 19th century. These places individually must have installed electricity when they could.

The sentence basically wants to say that at the end of 19th century important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had already started using electricity. So the later event is basically the 19th century coming to its end. Hence, usage of had installed in Choice A is correct.




If the sentence says that lighting had been provided mainly by candle or gas, the usage will suggest that candle or gas was the main source of lighting only till the end of 19th century. After that, they it not used as the source of lighting.

But the sentence just wants to say the opposite. Even after the end of 19th century, majority of homes continued to use candle or gas as the main source of lighting.

Many homes used candle or gas even during the end of 19th century and most likely after that time also. Hence, we need simple past tense verb to denote this general information in the past.




I am not sure why you say so. Don't we say, say after a power outage, that power is back. We all know what kind of entity electricity is.

And again, GMAT SC is not at all about "sounds awkward". It is all about logic that determines the grammar of the sentence.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century,
importantpublic placessuch as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks
had installed electric lighting , but
electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where
lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.

IC comma+but IC.

(A) electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still
(B) electricity was in less than one percent of homes and lighting still
>>verb missing in lighting and intended meaning is changed by separating electricity and lighting.
(C) there were less than one percent of homes with electricity, where lighting was still being
>> Note: "where" here points to homes not electricity so that's fine.
(D) there was less than one percent of homes that had electricity, having lighting that was still
>> incorrect use of -ing participle.
(E) less than one percent of homes had electricity, where lighting had still been

Between A and C:
Is the only issue with C is "being"? Request others to share the pointers...

Hi Skywalker18!

Happy to help

This is a little hard to think about because option D is wrong in several ways. So let's focus on your real question -- if we say "1 percent of homes", should that take a singular or a plural noun?

Your analysis is absolutely correct here -- "homes" is countable, so "1 percent of homes" should be plural. That means that the correct verb would be "were", not "was". The subject here is "1 percent", and "of homes" is a prepositional phrase, as you said. A percentage can be either plural or singular, depending on whether the noun it's referring to is countable or not. So here, since "homes", the noun that it's referring to, is countable, "1 percent" is plural

Hope that helps!
-Carolyn

Hey sriramsundaram91,
Lets look at option D.

In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century, important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting, but electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.

(D) there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity, having lighting that was still

1. "there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity,..."
Do u think "there was" is necessary here?
We could simply start with "less than 1 percent..."
Also, think about WTF is "there was" doing in my sentence?

Fineee.. I get it! You are not convinced with that explanation. Let me throw another error at you!

2. Verb-ing modifier - "having lighting that was still..."
But before we jump into this one you should know what it is briefly.

Verb-ing modifiers do two things usually
- Gives us some extra information or the result aspect of the preceding clause when followed by a comma.
- Gives us extra information about the preceding NOUN if there is NO comma.

So now that we kind of know what verb-ing modifiers are, lets find the damn error!
We know that COMMA + having modifies the ENTIRE preceding clause.
The subject of "having lighting that was still.." MUST BE the SUBJECT of the PRECEEDING CLAUSE.
Logically "having lighting that was still..." should modify the subject "homes" to make any sense.
But because we have "there", it is pretty confusing and illogically modifies "there" instead of "homes".


I will try to explain with a simple example on verb-ing modifiers -

Amy skipped school, giving the excuse of stomach ace.
Who is doing the action of skipping school? The subject -Robert
Who is doing the action of giving excuses? The subject again - Robert

But in option D we have the wrong subject. Hence it is wrong.

Let me know if u have any more doubts. (or if u find anything wrong with the explanation)
Hope it helped you.

Hi Kaushik,

1) Usage of being is wrong in C. For details check out https://gmatclub.com/forum/correct-usage-of-being-123156.html

2) Here where is used as a relative pronoun so it should be immediately after homes[noun] rather than electricity[noun]
For details check out https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/645/01/

3)
important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting
electricity was in less than one percent of homes
there were less than one percent of homes with electricity

All three of the above sentences have subject and verb so they should be independent sentences.



Let me know if I am going wrong somewhere.

It's always fine to use "less" with a percentage, and only sometimes fine to use "fewer" (only when the quantity is countable). English is flexible on that point. "On the test, less than ten percent of the questions were about geometry" is perfectly good English, and it's much more common to use "less" in this context than to use "fewer".



I agree that, strictly speaking, the phrase "electricity was in less than one percent of homes" is not passive, though it is close. If it instead said "electricity was installed in less than one percent of homes", that's a passive construction, since it doesn't mention who did the installing. I don't see that it's important to consider passive and active construction in this question though; answer B is wrong because it includes a sentence fragment after "and", and not because of passive voice. Indeed the correct answer here uses passive voice, at the end of the sentence: "lighting was provided by candles" is passive ("candles provided lighting" would be the active version).

There is a long reply above that also incorrectly rules out answer B solely because "was" and "provided" are allegedly not 'parallel'. There's nothing inherently wrong with using "was... and provided..." in a list. There is no parallelism issue in the sentence "I was talking on the phone when I provided my credit card details." It is because "provided" is being used in a passive sense here that the word "was" is required.

E has two problems
1. where is modifying electricity when it should modify homes
2. every clause has perfect tense and hence does not maintain sequence of events.

In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century, important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting, but electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.

(A) electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still
(B) electricity was in less than one percent of homes and lighting still
(C) there were less than one percent of homes with electricity, where lighting was still being
(D) there was less than one percent of homes that had electricity, having lighting that was still
(E) less than one percent of homes had electricity, where lighting had still been


Hi All, My only confusion is between A and C. A looks like passive construction and hence destroys the parallel construction of the sentence where the part before "but" is in active construction. Also, the part after "but" should preferably be an independent clause and hence a construction starting with "There" is better.

I think C is correct as, the part after "but" starts with "There" and looks like a complete independent clause, able making meaning of its own. Also, the modifier is not incorrectly placed as the part after "Where" is secondary modifier to "Homes" and doesn't require Touch Rule.

Somebody please respond to my explanation, as to where I am wrong. Thanks in advance for your valuable input.


I may be wrong, but its fine................ I am still learning

Hi Deepak, the crux of sentence, in option C is:

at the end of the nineteenth century, there had been less than 1 percent of homes with electricity

So, option C uses past perfect tense (had been). This is an incorrect usage. Past perfect tense is used to establish a time-sequence between two events that happened one after the other. In this sentence, end of the nineteenth century and electricity did not occur one after the other.

When the sentence is talking about an event that happened at a specific time (in this case end of the nineteenth century), we should be using simple past tense.

For example, one would say:

In 2010, I was in the final year of Engineering.

Following would be incorrect:

In 2010, I had been in the final year of Engineering.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Past perfect tense, its application and examples in significant detail. If someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

Tamalmallick13 "Was" is not being used as an auxiliary verb here. We have "Electricity was X, where lighting was Y." Both X and Y are modifiers: X= in <1% of homes; Y = provided by candles/gas. "Was" is the main verb in that first part, just as it would be if we said "I was in the pool" or "I was out of town." We might have expected another word, such as "electricity was provided to < 1% of homes," but notice that even in that case, "provided" is NOT a verb. The electricity didn't provide anything, nor did the lighting in the later clause. "Provided" in that case would be serving as a modifier, and "was" would still be the only verb.

If you read the discussion here:

https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2014 ... -less.html

you'll see that among New York Times editors (the authors of that article are NYT editors, as is the person whose contrary opinion is discussed), the question of whether to use "less" or "fewer" with fractions and percentages is controversial, but that many American style guides and dictionaries favour "less". Yes, it is the correct use of "as" to construct a comparison that makes B the better answer in the question you ask about.

Ah, of course--THAT'S why people are looking at this another way. I was hurrying a bit and didn't refer back to the original question. Sorry if I appeared to be oversimplifying.

The short answer may not be very satisfying: the GMAT didn't give us a choice of less/fewer, so we have to go with less here. Why is it okay? Because in some cases, we have some leeway about whether our less/fewer modifier refers to the percent itself or to the noun in question. Is it (<1%)*# of houses, or is it fewer than (1%*# of houses)? Therein lies the controversy that Mr. Stewart's link gets into. From a technical standpoint, "fewer" might seem to be more accurate/consistent, but honestly, "fewer" is a word most Americans don't even use much. That may account for some of the unevenness on the GMAT. Although we SC folks would turn up our noses (correctly) at "I ate less cookies than you did," many people would say exactly that! I don't think the GMAT will go that far, though.

You are splitting hairs and going away from Sentence Correction, I am afraid. What was the other alternative than candle and gas? There were no others than these two when electricity was introduced in homes. I don’t think one must go after every place where some alternative could have existed and find out its percentage. If we do that, when will we complete this question on the D-day?

Secondly, granting that A is not good enough, which is your preferred choice that you can justify?

Suarabh



(B)

Look at B from parallelism point of view. On the left of 'and' you have a passive voice IC with electricity as the subject and was as the verb. However on the right of 'and. You have only a phrase with a subject' lighting and a participle 'provided'. The verb auxiliary verb 'was' is missing. Hence, this combination is not parallel and is a fragment.

If B were "electricity was in less than one percent of homes, lighting still provided mainly by candles or gas", then that might have been ok.( I mean without the 'and')


Therefore, if a modifier appears after 'and', Pl. check for symmetrical parallelism immediately. In 90% of the cases, you find only a fragment in GMAT.

HTH!