Presenters at the seminar, one who is blind, will demonstrate adaptive

The question of whether to use "who" or "whom" isn't determined by what noun the pronoun refers to, but rather by the grammatical role the pronoun plays.

If the word is a subject (the "doer" of an action), we use "who." If the word is an object (the recipient of an action) we use "whom." For example, "My wife, who is extremely kind and generous, volunteers every Monday at a homeless shelter." Here, "who" is the subject of the verb "is."

But I could also write, "My wife, to whom I send flowers every day, is a wonderful person." In that last sentence, my wife is the object of the preposition, so she "receives" the action (sending flowers) -- and as a result, we'd need to use "whom" and not "who".

In (D) "whom" is the object of the preposition "of," so it's correct. In (B) "one of them who" is just plain bad. Why would we use back-to-back pronouns? Is "who" referring to "them?" To "one"? It's unnecessarily clunky and confusing.

I hope that helps!
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Hii Maryam.
In B, "who" is modifying "them" but since the helping verb after "who" is "is", we need a singular noun. Hence B is incorrect. Also there is one more mistake in B. Whenever you come across such sentences such as "one of X(Always Plural) who/that" always remember that verb to be followed has to be PLURAL.
In short:
One of X(Always Plural) who/that Y(Always Plural verb)
BUT
One of X(Always Plural) (Always Singular Verb)

Another major mistake in the question. "One of whom" and other options are incorrectly modifying "Seminar". This is a weird question. If it were "At the seminar the presenters, one of whom is blind, will bla bla bla", then it would have been right.
Hope that helps.
-s

D

Requires object pronoun "whom" not the subject pronoun who.

one of which is just wrong, which cannot refer to people.

IMO “one who is blind” is like saying there is only one blind person out of the total presenters and “one of whom is blind” is like saying that there could be more than one blind person in the group.

This sentence may not require pin pointing a blind person out of all total presenters to demonstrate adaptive equipment that allows visually impaired people to use computers. Any blind person would do. Hence D could be the correct choice.

Presenters at the seminar, one who is blind, will demonstrate adaptive equipment that allows visually impaired people to use computers.

(A) one who
(B) one of them who
(C) and one of them who
(D) one of whom
(E) one of which

Quick test for who and whom is to ask what does the who or whom refer to? It refers to the presenters which is plural. So, we would normally use "them" to refer to the presenters. Thus we can straight away rule out A, B and C. E is absurd because "which" is used to refer to objects/animals (?).

I was confused between B and D.... I opted B...but can't understand my mistake,,

I want verification of my analysis .I approcached the sentence as under :

1. Understood the meaning that among the presenters , there is one person who is blind and he will demonstrate..
2.Broke the sentence into clauses:

C1:Presenters at the seminar, one
C2:who is blind,
C1 (contd):will demonstrate adaptive equipment
C3: that allows visually impaired people to use computers.

2. Clause 1 doest not make one will demonstrate .....

3. Applied rule that after preposition only object pronoun whom can come , so eliminated B, C.
4.Applied rule which can refer only inanimate objects.Hence eliminated ans E

4. Arrived at answer D.


Doubt:

1. Can which refer to animals ?/ As per my current understanding that and which can only refer to inanimate objects.
Hence, they cannot refer to animals.
2.Who / Whom can refer to only human being ? Can they refer to animals ?As per my current understanding who and whom can refer to both animals and human beings.
3.Is one 'a pronoun?

If you can replace it with they -> WHO
If you can replace it with them -> WHOM

... The kind of rules you ca find in the pill ...

Hi pi10t,

Thank you for your question. This is classic case of a "who vs. whom" sentence, so let's look at each answer and if they are conveying the proper meaning:

Presenters at the seminar, one who is blind, will demonstrate adaptive equipment that allows visually impaired people to use computers.

(A) one who
By using "who," it now refers back to the word "seminar" and not to the presenters. The seminar can't be blind, so this is INCORRECT.

(B) one of them who
Again, by using "who," it refers back to the seminar being blind. It also adds in a vague pronoun "them" with no clear antecedent. Therefore, this one is also INCORRECT.

(C) and one of them who
This is the same answer as B, but with the word "and" added in. That doesn't fix the problems with who/whom or the vague pronoun "them," so it's INCORRECT.

(D) one of whom
This is the CORRECT answer because by using "whom," it's clear the phrase is referring back to one of the presenters being blind, not one of the seminars.

(E) one of which
This is INCORRECT because in the GMAT, one should never use "which" to refer to people - only animals or objects.
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VeritasKarishma GMATNinja

Could you please explain why D is correct and B is wrong? I believe we should use "who" instead of "whom" since that pronoun is being used to modify the subject and not the object. Marcab 's explanation seems to make sense why B might be wrong but D seems to be wrong too because it uses "whom".

Hi GMATNinja I am a big fan of your verbal analysis response, and you are doing a great service for GMAT Club members.
I would like to ask one particular doubt that is simple but yet to settle down for me.
In the above example you quote "My wife, who is extremely kind and generous, volunteers every Monday at a homeless shelter." Here, "who" serves as subject within the non-essential clause and so it is followed by verb "is".
In the 2nd example that you quote "My wife, to whom I send flowers every day, is a wonderful person." , here in non-essential clause "whom" is the object of preposition, but the subject is "I" and the verb is "send".
Whereas in the OA, i.e., D "one of whom" is blind; what is the subject for which "whom" is required to be used as receiver of the action. Cant we consider the non-essential clause with a subject pronoun such as - "one who is blind".
I know you are a very busy person, but I hope you reply me as early as possible as next week I am having my exam.
Thank You.

Apologies for the slow response! I'm obviously too late to be helpful for you, but if it's any consolation, this particular issue is extremely rare on the GMAT.

Anytime we have a plural subject and want to modify some portion of this larger group, we'll introduce a phrase like "one of whom," or "some of which" to differentiate between the larger subject of the main clause and the smaller subject of the modifying clause. For example, "The paintings in the Louvre, one of which was defaced by a toddler with a paint gun, proved to be a disappointment to the tourist from Queens." The phrase "one of which" differentiates between the painting that was defaced by the toddler and the larger group introduced in the subject of the sentence.

However, the sentence "The paintings in the Louvre, one which was defaced by a toddler with a paint gun, proved to be a disappointment," isn't acceptable usage. A native speaker would instinctively feel that something is off about this construction, but the reason it's objectively problematic is that it's confusing. One of what? Without the "of" it's not entirely clear that I'm talking about a member of the group in the subject. Perhaps I've introduced a new group. At the very least, you'd have to reread the sentence a couple of times to get a handle on what the writer is trying to communicate, and on the GMAT, clarity trumps murkiness every time.

The same issue applies to your question. If we have "Presenters at the seminar, one of whom is blind..." the phrase "one of whom" indicates that we're talking about a member of the original group of presenters. If we have "Presenters at the seminar, one who is blind" it's not entirely clear that the "one" is a member of a larger group -- it's a confusing phrase, and it almost sounds like the seminar is blind.

I hope that helps!
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hi experts
can you please explain why B is incorrect?

AjiteshArun egmat GMATNinja carcass

I wonder what the core meaning of the sentence is and why that parenthesis is intruding. The subject is the 'presenters' and the verb is 'will demonstrate'. The parenthetical modifier in between the commas is just a supplement even without which the sentence can give sensible meaning. Therefore let us us not bother whether it one who is blind, or one of them who is blind, or and one of them who is or one of whom is blind or one of which is blind.

If the author really wanted to mean that one of the presenters who is byline will demonstrate, then she should have worded it as 'The one blind presenter at the seminar will demonstrate" and should have taken away the parenthesis.

Without that, it looks all the five choices look like the same in effect. The take-away: If some info is critical to the intent, then one should not de-essentialism it as a parenthesis.
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daagh

is one of them who in B is grammatically wrong. ?

Hi EMPOWERgmatVerbal

Can you please advise why one in one of whom refers to presenters ; not seminars but one in one who refers to seminars.
Can you give some insights to understand the concept.

Thanks!

Great question imSKR!

We know that who/whom is a tricky thing to master! In this case, we need to figure out if what we need is a subjective or objective case here. The best way to figure this out is to replace who/whom with either a subjective or objective pronoun, and whichever works best is the direction you go into:

WHO = subjective = can replace with: he/she/they
WHOM = objective = can replace with: him/her/them

Now, let's break down our options by replacing who with "they" and whom with "them" to see which one works best:

(A) one who is blind --> one they is blind --> WRONG
(B) one of them who --> one of them they --> WRONG ("one of them" and "who" are competing with each other to refer to the same thing)
(C) and one of them who --> and one of them they --> WRONG (same reason as option B, but added "and" in there for some reason)
(D) one of whom --> one of them --> CORRECT
(E) one of which --> WRONG ("which" is a relative pronoun that should only refer to things, not people)

We hope that helps! Tag us at EMPOWERgmatVerbal if you have any other questions!
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Hi PrashantK0099, at best, this structure is redundant.

We can either say:

one of them blind

Or

one of whom is blind
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Dear Ashish Sir,

Thanks for this wonderful explanation.
Its crystal clear now
Thanks a ton