In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end

[JingziL752]

Apologies for bumping an old thread. But I have gone through the previous discussion and I didn't find useful information.

In choice A, it says
but electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.
I chose B because I think that where represents the "homes" and isn't like 99% homes where lighting was still provided mainly by candle or gas, not the whole homes?

I am not here to question the official answer, just trying to figure out why. It is really hard for a non-native speaker to understand.

Thanks in advance.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Good question. In answer A the word 'where' refers to 'one percent of homes', not all homes. Noun modifiers, such as those beginning with 'which' or 'where', need to be placed as close as possible to the nouns that they're modifying, but they don't always touch. Take the following (correct) sentence: "The bowl of apples, which is blue, is on the table." It's clear that the bowl is blue, not necessarily the apples. The modifier 'of apples' couldn't really be put anywhere else in the sentence, and since the meaning is clear it's okay.

[JingziL752]

Good question. In answer A the word 'where' refers to 'one percent of homes', not all homes.

This is exactly how I understand the sentence, but what puzzles me is that "electricity was in less than one percent of homes", so I consider that the " one percent of homes" have electricity. Isn't this contradicts with " where lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas"?

Don't know if I express clearly. Thank you!

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

No, you're right. I misread the sentence, apologies. My last post was wrong: 'where' needs to refer to 'homes' for the sentence to be logical. I should revise my advice above. Noun modifiers need to be as close as possible to the noun they're modifying, but most importantly, the meaning of the sentence needs to be clear. Take these correct sentences:

"The bowl of apples, which is blue, is on the table."
"The bowl of apples, which are tasty, is on the table."

You can see that the word 'which' could refer either to 'bowl' or 'apples', but so long as the meaning is clear, then the sentence is fine. In the problem above, the word 'mainly' clarifies that it's not just talking about 'one percent' of the homes, but homes generally.

[JingziL752]

I see...

So like the pronoun ambiguity, as long as there is actual the "things" that noun modifiers intend to represent and the meaning is correct, I should not consider the ambiguity? This is also the kind of ambiguity GMAT can tolerate?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

That's a good analogy. Remember that it's our job to choose the 'best' sentence, not a perfect one. This is a good example to remember of what GMAC considers acceptable ambiguity.