SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 17 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 active voice. Were the plants being grafted by the gardener?

(a)Was the gardener grafting the plants?
(b)Were the gardener grafting the plants?
(c)Was the gardener grafted the plants?
(d)Were the plants grafting the gardener?

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The given sentence is a question in the past continuous passive: were + being + grafted.

Turned active, the agent 'the gardener' becomes the subject, and the verb drops to plain past continuous: was grafting.

'The gardener' is singular, so the auxiliary is was, not 'were', and the question keeps its inverted order: Was the gardener grafting the plants? That is option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Were the gardener grafting the plants? — Were does not agree with the singular subject 'the gardener'. The 'were' in the original belonged to 'the plants', which is plural, and agreement is redecided once the subject changes.
(c)
Was the gardener grafted the plants? — 'Was the gardener grafted' puts a past participle after 'was', which makes the clause passive again — and a passive verb here cannot then take 'the plants' as an object.
(d)
Were the plants grafting the gardener? — This swaps the roles and makes the plants the ones doing the grafting. A voice change must preserve who did what to whom; only the arrangement may move.

Concept

Voice change is mechanical once you name the tense. In a passive the tense lives in the auxiliary and the main verb is always the past participle.

Past continuous passive: was/were + being + V3, as in 'The plants were being grafted'.
Past continuous active: was/were + V-ing, as in 'The gardener was grafting the plants'.

Agreement then follows the new subject, not the old one, and that is where the mark is usually lost.

SSC keeps the sentence a question in both directions, so two things must survive the change: the voice and the question form. Convert it to a statement in your head, then re-invert the auxiliary to the front.

Key facts

Past continuous passive is was/were + being + past participle.
Its active counterpart is was/were + present participle, with the by-agent as subject.
In a passive-to-active change the auxiliary agrees with the new subject, here singular.
A past participle after 'was' keeps the clause passive, so it cannot take a direct object.

Study next

Voice change in the continuous tenses across present, past and futureVoice change of questions beginning with an auxiliary and of wh-questionsVoice change where the agent is absent and must be supplied or dropped

Common traps

Carrying 'were' across from the original, because the eye reads the old auxiliary first.
Leaving the past participle in place and producing 'Was the gardener grafted the plants'.
Reversing agent and object under time pressure, which still reads fluently and means the opposite.

Both directions are set. Active from a continuous passive at 11 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.15 ('The letter was being typed by the secretary when the phone rang') and at 19 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.12 ('Data is being collected by the researcher').

The wh-question form is at English Q.2 here: 'By whom were you injured?' takes 'Who injured you?'

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.