Defining Relative Clauses Exercises

Defining relative clauses give essential information that tells us which person or thing we mean. Without the clause, the sentence is unclear or incomplete. In "The students who pass the exam will receive certificates," the clause "who pass the exam" is essential — it tells us which students. Remove it, and you get "The students will receive certificates," which has a completely different meaning (all students, not just those who pass).

Defining relative clauses have three key features. First, they have no commas — if you see commas around a relative clause, it is non-defining. Second, you can use that instead of "who" or "which": "The book that I borrowed" = "The book which I borrowed." Third, when the pronoun is the object, you can leave it out completely: "The book I borrowed" is correct and very common in spoken English. These clauses are tested heavily in Cambridge B1 and B2 exams, especially in open-cloze tasks where you must fill in the missing relative pronoun.