SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 9 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.

Select the option that expresses the given sentence in passive voice. He will give a lecture on personality development.

(a)A lecture on personality development will be given by him.
(b)A lecture on personality development will be giving by him.
(c)A lecture on personality development can be given by him.
(d)A lecture will be given on personality development.

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The active verb is will give, simple future. The simple future passive is will be + past participle, so will give becomes will be given.

The object moves to the front as a whole phrase. On personality development modifies lecture, so it travels with it: a lecture on personality development.

The subject He becomes the agent by him.

Putting the three together: A lecture on personality development will be given by him → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
A lecture on personality development will be giving by him. — giving is the present participle, so will be giving is the active future continuous with by him bolted on. A passive needs the past participle given.
(c)
A lecture on personality development can be given by him. — The form is a sound passive, but can has replaced will. Changing voice must not change the modal, and this turns a statement about the future into one about ability.
(d)
A lecture will be given on personality development. — It drops the agent by him, which the original supplies, and detaches on personality development from a lecture, so the phrase now attaches to will be given instead of naming the lecture.

Concept

Voice change does three things and nothing else: the object moves to subject position, the subject becomes a by-phrase, and the verb is rebuilt as be + past participle in the same tense.

The tense mapping is worth learning as a list — gives becomes is given, gave becomes was given, has given becomes has been given, is giving becomes is being given, and will give becomes will be given.

What must survive the change untouched is the tense, the modal and the meaning. Only the arrangement is allowed to move.

The object here is a noun phrase with a postmodifier, so the noun and its on-phrase move together as one unit rather than separately.

Key facts

The simple future passive is will be followed by the past participle, as in will be given.
The past participle of give is given, while giving is the present participle used in continuous tenses.
A modal in the active must reappear unchanged in the passive, so will cannot become can.

Study next

Passives of the perfect tenses, such as has been taken and had been finishedPassives of ditransitive verbs, where either object can become the new subjectPassives of questions and of imperatives

Common traps

Accepting will be giving because it opens like a passive, when the participle is wrong.
Letting the modal drift from will to can, which changes what the sentence claims.
Separating a lecture from on personality development and calling the result a faithful passive.

SSC builds one option with the right shape but the wrong participle and another with the right form but a changed modal, so the participle and the modal are the two things to check.

The same simple-future change is set at 11 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.11 (Ravi will play the match), whose wrong option will be playing is built exactly like option (b) here, and again at 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.8 and 19 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.3.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.