SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 13 of 98

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Select the option that expresses the given sentence in passive voice. His behaviour vexes me sometimes.

(a)Sometimes he vexes me with his behaviour.
(b)I am sometimes vexed by his behaviour.
(c)He is being vexing me with his behaviour
(d)His behaviour is vexed.

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The active sentence is 'His behaviour vexes me sometimes': subject his behaviour, verb vexes (simple present), object me.

Turn it round. The object me becomes the subject I. Simple present passive is am/is/are + past participle, so vexes becomes am vexed. The old subject becomes the agent, by his behaviour.

That yields 'I am sometimes vexed by his behaviour' — option (b). The be-verb is am, not is, because it agrees with the new subject I.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Sometimes he vexes me with his behaviour. — 'Sometimes he vexes me with his behaviour' is still active: the doer is still the grammatical subject. Reshuffling a sentence is not changing its voice.
(c)
He is being vexing me with his behaviour — Is being vexing is not a passive form. A passive needs be plus a past participle, and 'vexing' is the present participle, so the sentence never converts.
(d)
His behaviour is vexed. — 'His behaviour is vexed' makes his behaviour the thing vexed, reversing who acts on whom, and it loses the object me that the passive subject should come from.

Concept

Voice conversion is mechanical once the tense of the active verb is identified.

Simple present becomes am/is/are + V3. Simple past becomes was/were + V3. Future simple becomes will be + V3. Present continuous becomes is/are being + V3.

The object moves to the front and becomes the subject, which is why the pronoun changes case: me becomes I, him becomes he, them becomes they.

An adverb of frequency such as sometimes keeps its usual place before the main verb, so 'am sometimes vexed' is the natural position.

Three of the four options here are not passive at all, so the item can be answered by elimination even before the conversion is worked out.

Key facts

Simple present passive is formed with am, is or are plus the past participle.
The object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive, so 'me' becomes 'I'.
The be-verb agrees with the new subject, which gives 'am vexed' rather than 'is vexed'.

Study next

Passive of simple past and future simplePassive of continuous tenses: is being built, was being repairedPassive of questions introduced by who: By whom were you invited?

Common traps

Choosing the option that merely rearranges the active sentence.
Writing 'is vexed' by agreement with 'his behaviour' instead of with the new subject I.

Voice items are set on whatever tense the sentence already carries, and the option list usually carries one grammatically impossible form to reject on sight.

English Q.9 of this paper runs the future version, 'He will give a lecture on personality development'. Simple-present conversions appear on 12 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.10 and on 24 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.8.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.