SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 11 of 99

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 10 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. The tutor was not teaching the student.

(a)The student was not taught by the tutor.
(b)The student was teaching the tutor.
(c)The student was not being teaching by the tutor.
(d)The student was not being taught by the tutor.

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The active verb is was teaching, past continuous. A continuous tense keeps its own auxiliary in the passive and inserts being before the past participle: was or were + being + V3.

So The tutor was not teaching the student becomes The student was not being taught by the tutor.

The object the student moves into subject position, not stays attached to was, and the doer follows by → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The student was not taught by the tutor. — Was not taught is the passive of the simple past did not teach. It is good English, but it drops the continuous aspect that was teaching carries.
(b)
The student was teaching the tutor. — This stays active and swaps the roles, making the student the one who teaches. It also loses the negative altogether.
(c)
The student was not being teaching by the tutor. — Being teaching is not a possible form. Only a past participle can follow being, so it has to be taught, never the -ing form.

Concept

Voice change follows the tense, not the other way round. Each tense has one passive shape, and the continuous tenses cost the most marks because they need two auxiliaries.

Present continuous: is, am or are + being + V3. Past continuous: was or were + being + V3.

The rest is mechanical. The object becomes the subject, the verb takes the matching passive form, the original subject follows by, and a negative stays with the first auxiliary.

Three of the four options here are already passive, so the item turns on aspect rather than on voice. You have to match was teaching, not merely get the doer behind by.

Key facts

The past continuous passive is was or were, plus being, plus the past participle.
In a negative sentence not stays with the first auxiliary: was not being taught.
Only a past participle can follow being, which is why being teaching is impossible.

Study next

Passive forms of the present continuous and the past continuousPassives of modal verbs and of imperativesPassives of verbs with two objects, as in She was given a prize

Common traps

Taking was not taught, which is correct English but the passive of a simple past rather than of a continuous.
Rewriting the sentence in the active voice and accepting it because the wording changed.

The same past-continuous passive is keyed at 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.17, where Each candidate was making tall promises turns into were being made, and at 12 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.18, where Scientists were conducting experiments on the newly discovered species turns into were being conducted.

The present-continuous version, is being built, is keyed at 17 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.15.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.