Learn Italian: Il comitato ha analizzato l'indagine, la quale conferma l'esito. - The committee analyzed the survey, which confirms the outcome.

While you could absolutely use che here, la quale is a stylistic choice often found in formal writing, journalism, or official reports. It acts exactly like che as the subject, but adds a higher, more elegant register to the sentence.

Does la quale help avoid confusion in this sentence?

Yes! If the sentence used che, it would still be grammatically correct, but che is invariable. By using la quale (feminine singular), it perfectly matches the feminine noun l'indagine (the survey). This makes it explicitly clear that the survey confirms the outcome, not the masculine il comitato (the committee).

I often forget the gender of words starting with an apostrophe and ending in -e, like l'indagine. How can I tell it is feminine here?

The relative pronoun la quale gives it away! Since it must agree in gender and number with the noun it replaces, la quale confirms that indagine is feminine. As a helpful pattern, Italian nouns ending in -gine (like l'origine or l'immagine) are almost always feminine.

Could I use risultato instead of esito for the word outcome?