{"id":2337,"date":"2010-02-11T13:49:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T21:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=2337"},"modified":"2010-02-19T12:16:44","modified_gmt":"2010-02-19T20:16:44","slug":"%e2%80%9cwho%e2%80%9d-vs-%e2%80%9cwhom%e2%80%9d-in-gmat-sentence-correction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/%e2%80%9cwho%e2%80%9d-vs-%e2%80%9cwhom%e2%80%9d-in-gmat-sentence-correction\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWho\u201d vs. \u201cWhom\u201d in GMAT Sentence Correction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

There are some issues on which the GMAT sentence correction questions test for the specific preferred style of the GMAT as much as for the accepted rules of grammar. \u201cWho\u201d vs. \u201cwhom,\u201d luckily, is not one of them. This is generally a straightforward issue, and is rarely tested in a complicated way. However, since even highly educated and knowledgeable speakers sometimes misuse \u201cwho\u201d and \u201cwhom,\u201d it\u2019s worth going over the differences in usage, and seeing a couple of rules that should guide you in determining which pronoun is correct.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

If a question were asked about the sentence, would the answer be \u201che\/she\/they,\u201d or \u201chim\/her\/them\u201d?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This is probably the easiest way to remember the difference between \u201cwho\u201d and \u201cwhom,\u201d and the majority of the time, this will get you the correct answer. If a question about the action being described would be answered with \u201che ---,\u201d then the correct form is \u201cwho.\u201d If a question about the action being described would be answered with \u201chim,\u201d then the correct form is \u201cwhom.\u201d Just remember that the words with M\u2019s at the end go together. He = Who, and Him = Whom. Let\u2019s look at a simple sentence addressing this issue:<\/p>\n

The Welsh corgi is a small herding dog, and is well-known because of Queen Elizabeth II, who\/whom keeps several of them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s likely that in this sentence, your \u201cear\u201d would tell you to choose \u201cwho\u201d\u2014and that would be correct. But if your \u201cear\u201d fails you, then you can determine the correct answer by asking yourself about the action being described in the relevant part of the sentence: \u201cWho keeps corgis?\u201d And then answer that question with a pronoun: \u201cShe does.\u201d Since \u201cshe\u201d is appropriate here, we use \u201cwho\u201d in the sentence. Make sense? Let\u2019s try it on another sentence.<\/p>\n

If the computer system continues to cause problems over the weekend, the secretary is supposed to call whoever\/whomever she can find from the tech department.<\/p>\n

Now we ask ourselves: \u201cWhich people are the secretary supposed to call?\u201d And we answer with a pronoun: \u201cShe is supposed to call them.\u201d Therefore, we use \u201cwhomever\u201d in the sentence.<\/p>\n

Within a sentence, a verb that has a tense must have a subject; that subject must be in the nominative case.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Any verb with a tense has to have a subject, and therefore the word to use in that situation will be the subjective pronoun \u201cwho\u201d or \u201cwhoever.\u201d For example:<\/p>\n

During the holiday season, I donated money to whoever\/whomever was bell-ringing outside of the grocery store.<\/p>\n

There are two verbs with tenses in this sentence, and we can check them both for correctness: first, we have \u201cdonated,\u201d and the subject is \u201cI\u201d. Then, we have \u201cwas bell-ringing,\u201d and there the subject would be \u201che\/she,\u201d so \u201cwhoever\u201d is correct. This one may be a little confusing, because we could ask a question, as described above, and get the opposite answer: \u201cWho did I donate money to?\u201d \u201cI donated money to them.\u201d But that leaves the verb \u201cwas\u201d without a subject. While rule 1 above will usually get you the correct answer, because \u201cwho\u201d vs. \u201cwhom\u201d is usually tested in the simpler fashion seen there, if rule 1 and rule 2 produce different answers, you\u2019re probably asking the wrong question. Put simply, rule 2 trumps rule 1 when it\u2019s applicable.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s put it all together with a GMAT-style sentence:<\/p>\n

In answer to Jennifer\u2019s query, she was told that in the record store, there is a list of available recordings of lesser-known Jazz artists of whom recordings survive who played at the famous Cat\u2019s Meow speakeasy.<\/p>\n

We have two \u201cwho\u201d vs. \u201cwhom\u201d issues in this sentence, and both can be answered using rules 1 and 2 above. For the first instance, \u201c\u2026Jazz artists of whom recordings survive\u2026\u201d we ask \u201cWhich artists are the recordings of?\u201d And the answer is, \u201cThe recordings are of them.\u201d Thus, \u201cwhom\u201d is correct in the sentence. And then we examine the verb \u201cplayed,\u201d which is in the past tense. The subject of that verb would be \u201cthey,\u201d as in \u201cthey played,\u201d which would make the correct pronoun \u201cwho.\u201d In this sentence, then, both of those pronouns are used correctly.<\/p>\n

Even experienced grammarians sometimes differ on their preferred usages of \u201cwho\u201d and \u201cwhom,\u201d but these two little rules should be enough to guide you in nearly all instances of \u201cwho\u201d vs. \u201cwhom\u201d confusion in GMAT sentence corrections.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are some issues on which the GMAT sentence correction questions test for the specific preferred style of the GMAT as much as for the accepted rules of grammar. \u201cWho\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat","category-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2337"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2414,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2337\/revisions\/2414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}