Choose the correct relative construction for the non-defining clause:

The geological team submitted five rock specimens to the mass spectrometer, ________ revealed traces of precious rare-earth minerals.

Answer and explanation

Correct answer: A. none of which

Answer: none of which. Why not the others: 'none of whom' is restricted to human antecedents; 'none of them' lacks relative binding and produces an ungrammatical comma splice; 'none of what' is syntactically invalid as a relative connector here.
  1. Step 1: Identify the antecedent: the antecedent is 'five rock specimens' (inanimate physical objects).
  2. Step 2: When a quantifier introduces a relative clause modifying non-human entities, 'which' is the appropriate relative pronoun: 'none of which'.

Practise more Relative Clauses, Prepositional Complements, and Parallelism.

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