Match the subject and the verb

In today's class, some students don't understand a sentence in the Cloze on the review test.  Here is how I analyze it.   Here is the test items:

... For example, potato chips were invented because the chef George Crum got angry when a guest __27__ complained Crum's French fries were too thick refused to have them.  Crum then remade the fries very thin adn crispy so that teh guest would have trouble eating them with a fork.

___27. (A) which   (B) who   (C) X   (D) being

The answer is ________.

 

The correct answer is (B) who.

Some students chose (C) because to them, the subject "a guest" should naturally be followed by the verb "complained."  

However, they missed the verb "refused."  If they had read to the end of the sentence and known "refused" was the verb of the subect "a guest," they might have chosen the right answer (B) who.   I told them that matching the verb with the subject is very important in analyzing a long sentence.  The following is how I analyzed the sentence.

For example, potato chips were invented because the chef George Crum got angry when a guest __27__ complained  Crum's French fries were too thick refused to have them. 

 

The matching goes like this:

(S1) a guest -- (V1) refused

(S2) ______ --(V2) complained

(S3) Crum's French fries --(V3) were

So, after the noun "a guest," they need a relative clause to modify the noun. In the relative clause, the verb "complained" needs its subject, and thus the answer should be the relative pronoun "who."