GWD 30-41

Elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains, which would make it seem that elk are mountain dwellers, while they once ranged over virtually all of the continental United States except for a small strip in the extreme Southwest.

1. Elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains, which would make it seem that elk are mountain dwellers, while
2. The fact that elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains would make it seem that they are mountain dwellers, but
3. It would seem that elk would be mountain dwellers because of their living now solely almost in the Rocky Mountains, but still
4. Now living almost solely in the Rocky Mountains, it would seem that elk were mountain dwellers, although
5. It seems that elk would be mountain dwellers from the fact that they now live solely almost in the Rocky Mountains, since

The answer is A. But it seems to conflict with the rule that which can not refer to a sentence before.

我也错了,一起顶

A) is better, for parallelism matters, A)"Elk.... while they..." is a perfect sentence, B)"The fact...,but they..." is not parallel and "they" referent is ambiguous.

The usage of "which" in A is ok, please refer to the following explaination from Kingsoft:

  The antecedent of which  can sometimes be a sentence or clause,  as opposed to a noun phrase, as in

"She ignored him, which proved to be unwise."

" They swept the council elections, which could never have happened under the old rules."

 Such examples are unexceptionable, but care should be taken that this usage does not cause ambiguities

Another example is:

"He changed his mind, which made  me very angry."
他改变了主意，这使我很生气。

B吧，which不能指带前面的这句话，其实读懂这句话意思就变得容易了

The fact that elk now
live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains
would make it seem that they are mountain dwellers, but

it for the that clause behind