WAEC 2020 English Language · Question 69

This is the teacher … told me the answer.

Question

From the words or group of words lettered A to D, choose the word or group of words that best completes each of the following sentences. This is the teacher_______told me the answer.

A.whom i said
B.who i said
C.who i said he
D.i said that he

Answer: B. who i said

Explanation written with AI and checked against the answer key

Analyze the question

The sentence is: "This is the teacher ___ told me the answer."

We need a relative clause that connects to "teacher" and also supplies the subject of "told me the answer."

The concept

When a relative pronoun is followed by a parenthetical phrase such as "I said" or "I think," the pronoun still takes its case from its role in the main relative clause. The phrase "I said" is just an interruption.

Take the sentence "This is the teacher who, I said, told me the answer."

"who" is the subject of "told"
"I said" is an inserted comment

Testing the options

A. "whom I said" gives "the teacher whom I said told me the answer." "Whom" is the object form, but here the pronoun is the subject of "told," so it is wrong. (Many people use "whom" here by mistake.)
B. "who I said" gives "the teacher who I said told me the answer." "Who" is the subject of "told," and "I said" is a parenthetical phrase. This is grammatically correct.
C. "who I said he" gives "the teacher who I said he told me the answer." The "he" is redundant, because "who" already is the subject.
D. "I said that he" gives "the teacher I said that he told me the answer." There is no proper relative link, and "he" is again redundant.

Answer

"Who" is the subject of "told me the answer."

Exam tip

To check who or whom, remove the interrupting phrase ("I said," "I think," "he believes"). Then see whether the pronoun is a subject or an object. "This is the teacher who told me the answer" works, so "who" is right.

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