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

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.

Dear @EMPOWERgmatVerbal ,

Thanks for detailed explanation. I am confused in option D with your explanation:

[/quote] (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. [/quote]

As per your explanation verb+ing "having" is modifying "there was" which according to me is wrong. having is modifying the complete clause "there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity" which is correct.
According to me, Option D is wrong because:
1. The clause "there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity" is incorrect. Instead of "was", it should be "were" since the subject is "1 percent of homes".
2. "That" is wrong.
2A: In the clause "there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity", it should be those since 1% of homes are plural.
2B: In the clause "having lighting that was still provided mainly by candles or gas", it should be "other homes".

I will also request egmat to confirm my understanding.

Thanks in advance
bb generis GMATNinja egmat

(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. [/quote]

As per your explanation verb+ing "having" is modifying "there was" which according to me is wrong. having is modifying the complete clause "there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity" which is correct.
According to me, Option D is wrong because:
1. The clause "there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity" is incorrect. Instead of "was", it should be "were" since the subject is "1 percent of homes".
2. "That" is wrong.
2A: In the clause "there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity", it should be those since 1% of homes are plural.
2B: In the clause "having lighting that was still provided mainly by candles or gas", it should be "other homes".

I will also request egmat to confirm my understanding.

Thanks in advance
bb generis GMATNinja egmat[/quote]

Hello @priyanshu14!

Let's tackle your concerns, one at a time, and figure out where the miscommunication happened!

(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. [/quote]

As per your explanation verb+ing "having" is modifying "there was" which according to me is wrong. having is modifying the complete clause "there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity" which is correct.

You are correct to say that an -ing modifier can sometimes modify an entire clause. However, the way this modifier is worded makes it confusing as to what it's referring back to. It's not that it's grammatically wrong - it's just not how the GMAT prefers we handle modifiers. They prefer that modifiers are as clear as possible. Option A rewrites the modifier to make it clearer that it's referring back to just "homes," rather than the entire phrase.

Now let's tackle your other issues:

According to me, Option D is wrong because:
1. The clause "there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity" is incorrect. Instead of "was", it should be "were" since the subject is "1 percent of homes".

I'll agree with you on that one! Option A fixes this by moving the singular subject "electricity" before the verb.

2. "That" is wrong.

This is actually okay as it is. You couldn't change it to "which" because that would create a "modifier inside a modifier" situation, which wouldn't make a lot of sense to readers.

2A: In the clause "there was less than 1 percent of homes that had electricity", it should be those since 1% of homes are plural.

What are you replacing with "those" here? I don't see anywhere you could put "those" and it would work.

2B: In the clause "having lighting that was still provided mainly by candles or gas", it should be "other homes".

Again, I'm not sure where you would put "other homes" here?? I don't see where that would work.

I hope this helps! Also, if you want, please clarify what you mean by 2A & 2B on your list so I can better help you clear those up.

C. there were less than one percent of homes with electricity, where lighting was still being ---1. still being provided changes the meaning. 2. Where is wrongly referring to electricity

According to the above solution, where is wrongly referring to electricity.
with is a preposition and with electricity is modifying the word homes. Can 'where' not refer to homes instead of electricity as who does in the example.

Ex : The committee chose Mr. Smith of Left Block, who was the most experienced member, to lead all the management-related operations.

who refers to Mr. Smith and not left block.

Can you please answer daagh ?

In the answer choice a), there is no bonafide verb in the independent clause introduced by but. Can you explain how it is correct?

was is as bonafide as a verb can get:).

It seemed 'was' was used as an auxiliary verb and there is a requirement of the main verb. With the main verb, the sentence will look like "electricity was supplied in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still".

Would you explain, how without the main verb it was a complete sentence?

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.

Hi Tamal, main verb is the verb of the independent clause.

For example:

Jack is smart.
- Above sentence is an independent clause. Auxiliary verb is is the main verb.

Peter sleeps.
- Above sentence is an independent clause. Action verb sleeps is the main verb.

On the other hand, in the following sentence:

Peter is a person who lives life on his own terms.
- lives is an action verb, but is not the main verb, because lives is the verb of the Dependent clause who lives life on his own terms. In the above sentence, is is the main verb because it is the verb of the Independent clause Peter is a person.

In other words, main verb can either be an action verb or an auxiliary verb.

Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Independent/Dependent clauses, their application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

[quote="yavasani"]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 (helping verb (was) missing)

(C) there had been less than 1 percent of homes with electricity, where lighting was still being (there is confusing and had also)

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

(E) less than one percent of homes had electricity, where lighting had still been (use of had twice in a sentence)

Dear GMATGuruNY AjiteshArun MartyTargetTestPrep IanStewart DmitryFarber,

I'm just curious why is "less than one percent of homes" correct?

LESS should be used with uncountable nouns.
However, "one percent of homeS" are clearly countable.

Some expert replied earlier but I'm still confused.

daagh
passive voice? i did not find any passive voice here! Could you share why do you consider it as passive voice, please?
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-->so do you think that 'lighting......' is considered as 'adverbial modifier' here?
Thanks__

"electricity was provided to < 1% of homes,"--->it seems that 'provided' is a 'verb'. The verb 'provided' has been used as 'passive', isn't it?
The electricity didn't provide anything--->the electricity did not provide anything in the context. it's ok. But, apart from this context, 'provided' could be verb if we use it as passive voice.
The electricity was provided by the government to the local people.
^ in this example, 'provided' is verb. Am I missing anything in your writing?
Thanks__

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.

Dear IanStewart,

If LESS is fine with a percentage, then how could you eliminate choice A. in the below question?
I think one-quarter = 25%.

Here OA is B.
Is your decision point between A. and B. is "THAT many" vs. "AS many"?

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.

It's odd that folks are discussing less vs. fewer on percents/fractions without discussing what we have percents/fractions OF. We can have less land, but fewer drive-ins. We'd have less food, but fewer cookies. This is a simple matter of singular vs. plural.