TOEIC Relative Pronouns: Who, Which, That and Whose

How to choose a relative pronoun in three checks

1. 1Find the noun being described: a person, a thing, or a place. Do not decide from that noun alone.
2. 2Read inside the relative clause. Is the missing item doing the action, receiving it, or showing ownership before another noun?
3. 3Check the punctuation and any preposition before the blank. A non-defining clause excludes that; a fronted preposition can require whom or which.

Consider “The technician ___ repaired the scanner has arrived.” The blank is the subject of repaired and refers to a person. Who works, and that is also grammatical in this defining clause. A fair multiple-choice question must avoid offering both without another constraint. For the broader sentence-completion routine, start with TOEIC Part 5 tips.

Who, whom, whose, which and that: comparison table

A place noun does not automatically mean where. “The office which we renovated” needs an object for renovated; “the office where we work” needs a place relationship.

Why commas and prepositions change the answer

A defining clause identifies the noun: “Employees who work nights receive an allowance.” Only the night workers are included. A non-defining clause adds extra information: “Our security team, who work nights, receive an allowance.” The commas change how the information relates to the noun. Do not insert or remove them merely to make an option fit.

After a preposition placed before the blank, use a form that can function there: “the system on which we rely” and “the consultant with whom we spoke.” That cannot stand immediately after that preposition. A defining clause with the preposition at the end allows more possibilities: “the system that we rely on.”

For reduced clauses such as “the files stored on the server,” study the relationship between passive voice and past participles. Stored describes files that are stored; it is not a new finite verb.

What our relative-clause count actually measures

A word-boundary search for relative in the skill labels finds 259 questions, including reduced clauses; 69 carry a hard label (26.6%). The earlier broad substring search returned 303 because it also matched correlative, as in correlative conjunctions. That was a different population and is not the denominator used here.

Across the whole active bank, which and who occur as a correct-answer/distractor pair 149 times. Within the 259-question relative group, which is the keyed answer 131 times, who 43 and whose 33. This describes question construction. It does not tell us how often learners confuse these words, and it is not a reason to guess which.

Our confusing-pairs guide explains how answer–distractor pairs differ from pairs of two wrong options.

Six relative-pronoun practice questions

Choose one option before reading the answer section. Each item has one intended standard-English answer.

1. 1The accountant, ___ joined us in June, prepared the budget. (A who / B which / C whose / D whom)
2. 2The software, ___ requires an update, is unavailable. (A that / B who / C which / D whose)
3. 3We contacted the vendor ___ support team handled the fault. (A who / B whose / C whom / D where)
4. 4The laboratory ___ we tested the equipment is closed. (A where / B which / C whom / D whose)
5. 5The laboratory ___ we inspected yesterday is closed. (A where / B whose / C who / D which)
6. 6The adviser to ___ the letter was addressed has retired. (A who / B whom / C that / D whose)

Answers: identify the missing job

1. 1A, who. It is the subject of joined and refers to the accountant. Whom cannot be the subject.
2. 2C, which. Software is a thing and the commas mark extra information; that is excluded.
3. 3B, whose. The blank modifies support team and expresses the vendor’s relationship to that team.
4. 4A, where. We tested the equipment already has a subject, verb and object; the missing relationship is location.
5. 5D, which. Inspected needs an object. A laboratory is a place, but that alone does not license where.
6. 6B, whom. To stands directly before the relative word, making formal object whom appropriate.

For each mistake, write the role you missed rather than just copying the correct letter. If tense or the verb inside the clause caused the error, review conditional sentence patterns separately so two problems do not become one.

A short review routine

Write three versions of one sentence: a subject relative, an object relative, and a possessive relative. For example, start with a supplier and describe who delivered the goods, whom you contacted, and whose goods arrived. Next replace the supplier with equipment and check which forms survive. This forces you to use the rule rather than recognise a memorised sentence.

Grammar reference: British Council on defining relative clauses. Read the source for the distinction between identifying information and extra information.

Sources and counting method

The figures come from all 16,214 active, original eng-test.com questions fetched on 27 September 2026. Topic counts use skill labels or exact context tags; groups can overlap. Difficulty means an editorial label, not a measured learner error rate or the difficulty of an official TOEIC paper. Relative uses the word-boundary pattern \brelative\b on tested_skill_en; it includes reduced relatives and excludes correlative labels.

Download the aggregate counts and matching rules. No learner records are included. The exercises in this guide are newly written teaching examples, not official ETS questions. For the wider picture, see our Reading bank analysis.