Thread: All of the students got free tickets.

This is also a problem of descriptive or consecutive usage of relative pronoun. Some grammar book has a question like this. It seems to mean if it is a descriptive usage, it can mean part of the students, while it can mean the whole students for consecutive usage. Is it correct?

Q)choose the matching answer - a.
ex)The students, who had done well on the test, got free tickets to the concert.
a.All of the students got free tickets.
b.Only some of the students got free tickets.

Originally Posted by keannu

ex)The students, who had done well on the test, got free tickets to the concert.
a.All of the students got free tickets.
b.Only some of the students got free tickets.

In the sentence you give as an example, the commas act almost as brackets.'who had done well' is a non-defining relative clause giving additional information about the students. The person who uttered those words and the person to whom they are speaking both know who the students are. Only #a is correct.

If there were no commas, then 'who got free tickets'would define which students the speaker was talking about (there would be other students). Only #b would be correct.