<p>Having the responsibility of a part-time job can greatly benefit high school students, [all of them must learn] to manage their time well in order to succeed in college or the workplace.
a) all of them must learn
b)all of them are learning
c)all of whom must learn
d)all have to learn
e)they all have to learn</p>
<p>I chose e) in this question. I eliminated b) and d), but I don't know why a), c), and my choice of answer is incorrect.</p>
<p>In this question, I am completely lost. Please help me!</p>
<p>This is a difficult grammar question. The clause that follows the comma is a noun phrase – an appositive. This noun phrase serves to identify the noun that precedes it, specifically “students”. “all of whom” ties most tightly to “students” in the sense of providing additional information about them.</p>
<p>I realize that this explanation is incomplete. I’ll think a bit more about this question and perhaps post an expanded explanation later.</p>
<p>Having the responsibility of a part-time job can greatly benefit high school students, [all of them must learn] to manage their time well in order to succeed in college or the workplace.
a) all of them must learn
b)all of them are learning
c)all of whom must learn
d)all have to learn
e)they all have to learn</p>
<p>a) wouldn’t all of them make it independent? “having…high school students because all of them…” Having a because in there would make the clause dependent, but since there is no because, isn’t “all of them” independent?</p>
<p>b) I don’t think are learning would make sense because it says “having the responsibility…can”</p>
<p>c) I’m pretty sure this is the correct answer just like what junyeul95 said</p>
<p>d) Doesn’t sound right, and independent clause?</p>
<p>e) It can’t be this because they all have to learn would be an independent clause. You can’t separate 2 independent clauses with a comma.</p>
<p>Answer choices a, b, and e all make an independent clause follow the comma, which is a grammatical error called a “comma splice”. This leaves d and c. Choice d simply doesn’t make grammatical sense.
So I’m pretty sure c is the right choice.</p>
<p>The comma that precedes the phrase “all of them …” is required for all the choices. So the clause that follows the comma must be a “non-defining relative clause”. Stated differently this clause provides additional non-essential information about the immediately preceding noun, which in this case is “students”. (Note that if the comma were absent the clause would be a “defining relative clause”, but that everything else stated in this post would still apply.)</p>
<p>A non-defining (or defining) relative clause must be introduced by a relative pronoun. In English there are only 4 (or arguably 5) relative pronouns. They are who/whom, whose, which and, arguably. that. Note that the prepositional phrase “all of …” requires the object form of "who, i.e. “whom”</p>
<p>Note that “them” and “they” are NOT relative pronouns. But that they can be used to express a idea similar to that of the correct choice (c) as follows:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>i.e. as two distinct sentences.</p>
<p>Of the available choices only (c), with the relative pronoun “whom”, can correctly connect the two clauses in a single sentence.</p>