Defining relative clauses worksheet
Get printable practice and answer guidance, with related online activities ready when you want to continue.
How this practice helps you
- Print the questions without the answers beside them.
- Use the explained key to review your choices.
- Continue the same topic online when you are ready.
Name: ____________________ Date: ____________________
Which relative pronoun can be omitted?
The teacher who helped me / The book that I bought / The student who arrived
My answer: ________________________________________
The people ___ live upstairs are friendly.
who / whose / where
My answer: ________________________________________
Choose a correct defining clause.
The bag I bought is blue. / The bag I bought it is blue. / The bag what I bought is blue.
My answer: ________________________________________
The person ___ phone rang apologised.
who / whose / which
My answer: ________________________________________
In “the bus that stops here”, can that be omitted?
Yes, always / No; it is the subject / Only after a comma
My answer: ________________________________________
Choose the clause that identifies a particular group.
Students which arrive late must sign in. / Students who arrive late must sign in. / Students, who arrive late, must sign in.
My answer: ________________________________________
The bike ___ I bought yesterday is blue.
that / who / where
My answer: ________________________________________
Which relative pronoun can be omitted?
who in “the teacher who helped me” / that in “the bus that stopped” / that in “the book that I borrowed”
My answer: ________________________________________
Choose the correct version without an object pronoun.
The film who we watched was funny. / The film we watched was funny. / The film watched we was funny.
My answer: ________________________________________
The person ___ called left no message.
who / whose / where
My answer: ________________________________________
Answer key & explanations
- The book that I bought — In that I bought, I is the subject and that is the object.
- who — Who is the subject of live and refers to people.
- The bag I bought is blue. — Do not repeat the object as it inside the relative clause.
- whose — Whose indicates whose phone it was.
- No; it is the subject — That is the subject of stops and must remain.
- Students who arrive late must sign in. — Without commas, who arrive late restricts the rule to late students.
- that — That introduces a defining clause referring to a thing.
- that in “the book that I borrowed” — An object relative pronoun can be omitted. Subject relative pronouns cannot be omitted in these full clauses.
- The film we watched was funny. — We is the subject of watched, so the object relative pronoun can be left out.
- who — Who is needed as the subject of called and refers to the person.
Finished this worksheet?
Check the answer key, then practise the next related topic.
Next worksheet: Non-defining relative clauses →Want more defining relative clauses practice?
The online topic pack has 40 exercises across four sets, including sentence work and original writing. This printable covers the ten-question warm-up.
Open all four practice sets →Skills to work on in this practice
- Identify exactly which person or thing
- Choose who, which or that
- Recognise when the object pronoun can go