In which of the following sentences are commas correctly placed?

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The competition, which wasn't my idea to begin with, has become too intense.
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The competition, that we are involved in, is way too intense.
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The intense competiton, was not a good idea.
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The person, who started this competition, wasn't thinking clearly.
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1 answer

The sentence with correctly placed commas is:

The competition, which wasn't my idea to begin with, has become too intense.

The other sentences contain incorrect comma usage:

  1. The competition, that we are involved in, is way too intense. (It should be "The competition that we are involved in is way too intense" without the commas)

  2. The intense competition, was not a good idea. (There should be no comma before "was"; it should be "The intense competition was not a good idea.")

  3. The person, who started this competition, wasn't thinking clearly. (It should be "The person who started this competition wasn't thinking clearly," without the commas, because it is a defining relative clause.)