Quiz created: 2023-10-23
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Who-Whom Quiz 3

Instructions: Answer the multiple choice questions, guessing if necessary; then click on the "Process Questions" button at the end of the quiz to see your score in the adjacent message box. The program will not reveal which questions you got wrong, only how many points you have. Go back and change your answers until you get them all right. (The message box will rejoice at that point and the page will change color to show it is tickled pink.)

Points to note: (1) Questions with only one possible answer are one point each. (2) Questions with one or more possible answers (represented by check boxes) give a point for each correct answer, but also subtract a point for each wrong answer! (3) The program will not attempt to score your efforts at all if you have not tried at least half of the questions. (4) This quiz is for your own use only. No record of your progress is kept or reported to anyone.

The objective (accusative) form “whom” is rapidly being displaced by the nominative form “who” is most sentences. It rarely leads to confusion, since English generally depends on word order rather than inflection to show case, but formal, especially written, English still makes the distinction. Although a subordinate clause as a whole can function as a subject or object or modifier, the structure of the subordinate clause itself, not how it is used, is what governs the cases of its constituent words . For example, “He gave brochures to whoever attended.” “Whoever” is the subject of “attended,” not the object of “to”; the object of “to” is the full clause “whoever attended.” Hence “whomever” would be inappropriate. “Ellen is the woman WHOM I met at work.” “Whom” is the object of “met”; the whole clause “whom I met at work” simply modifies “woman.” Some of the following writers got it right and some screwed it up. For each of the following quoted sentences select the “proper” form and the logic that makes it the correct choice. The abbreviation “SDUT” stands for San Diego Union-Tribune.
1. “Maritime law gives 50 percent to WHOMEVER locates a shipwreck.” (2015-12-06, SDUT, p. A23 Associated Press, shortened )
The word should be
Whoever because it is the subject of the verb “locates.” 
Whomever because it is the object of “to.” 
No Answer
2. “A couple of weeks after that, a woman in California called the police on three black women WHOM she thought were behaving suspiciously.” (2018-06-04, New Yorker, p. 31)
The word should be
Who because it is the subject of “behaving suspiciously.” 
Whom because is the object of “thought.” 
Whom because it is apposition with “women,” the object of the preposition “on.” 
No Answer
3. “[The Mexican president said] he looks forward to frank, open dialogue with WHOMEVER is elected [president of the United States].” (2016-07-23, SDUT, p. A3)
The word should be
Who because it is the subject of “is elected.” 
Whom because it is the object of “with.” 
No Answer
4. “The reshuffling comes at a particularly tense juncture for Trump, WHOM aids said is increasingly frustrated by Mueller’s investigation and with senior officials at the Justice Department.” (2018-04-20, AP via SDUT, p. A4) (Unrelated issue: In this sentence “by” and “with” are used in parallel; they should be identical, preferably “by.”)
The word should be
Who because it is the subject of “is frustrated.” 
Whom because it is the object of “said.” 
Whom because it is in apposition to “Trump,” the object of “for.” 
No Answer
5. “Now comes the long slog of determining WHOM the rightful owners are, which is complicated by the fact that many pieces may have been legally sold.” (2013-11-06, Washington Post via SDUT, p. A-12)
The word should be
Who because it is the subject of “are.” 
Whom because it is the object of “determining.” 
No Answer
6. “Ice has taken the gloves off, and they are going after WHOEVER they want and for whatever reason.” (2017-09-29, SDUT, p. A6)
The word should be
Whoever because it is the subject of “they.” 
Whomever because it is the object of “after.” 
Whomever because it is the object of “want.” 
No Answer
7. “Civic San Diego was eligible for the program and was allowed to sell the tax credits to WHOEVER was making the investment. In this case, the credits were sold to the bank lending money to … buy the [building] site.” (2017-09-06, SDUT, p. B3)
The word should be
Whoever because it is the subject of “was making.” 
Whomever because it is the object of “to.” 
No Answer
8. “‘[President] Trump,’ he said, ‘is refusing to fight for the American workers WHO he repeatedly promised to protect.’” (2017-07-01, SDUT, p. C-2)
The word should be
Who because it is the subject of “promised.” 
Whom because it is the indirect object of “promised.” 
Whom because it is the direct object of “promised.” 
Whom because it is the direct object of “protect.” 
No Answer
9. “After her father died, her mother remarried Claude, WHOM then adopted she and her brother Larry.” (2016-07-24, SDUT, p. G5) (Unrelated issue: In this sentence “she,” a direct object of “adopted,” should be “her.”)
The word should be
Who because it is the subject of “adopted.” 
Whom because it is in apposition with “Claude,” the object of “remarried.” 
Whom because it is the object of “adopted.” 
No Answer

      Points out of 9:

Awesomeness
Score
Awesomeness Score: The following awesomeness score is a measure of how much guessing you did to get all items right. It is 100 if you got all questions right when you clicked the process button for the first time. It gets proportionately lower if it took more clicks, until it hits 0 if your clicks exceeded the number of questions.



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This consummately cool, pedagogically compelling, self-correcting,
multiple-choice quiz was produced automatically from
a simple text file of questions using D.K. Jordan's
dubiously original, but publicly accessible
Think Again Quiz Maker
of April 9, 2021.