SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 8 of 100

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 sentence that is expressed in passive voice.

(a)Children are participating in sand-art competition.
(b)I prefer tea to coffee.
(c)She sketches beautifully.
(d)The consignment was delivered yesterday.

Answer

Why

Correct — D. A passive verb phrase is a form of be followed by a past participle, and its subject receives the action instead of doing it.

In The consignment was delivered yesterday, the verb is was delivered — was, a form of be, plus the past participle delivered.

The consignment does no delivering; it is what got delivered. The doer is simply not named, and a passive stays passive with no by-phrase at all. That makes option (d) the passive sentence.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Children are participating in sand-art competition. — Are participating is be plus an -ing form, which is the present continuous and is active. The children are the ones doing the participating.
(b)
I prefer tea to coffee. — Prefer is a plain present-tense verb with no auxiliary at all, and I is the one preferring.
(c)
She sketches beautifully. — Sketches is active and used without an object, so there is nothing that could be moved into the subject slot to make it passive.

Concept

Two auxiliary patterns look alike and are constantly confused in this item type.

be + past participle is the passive: was delivered, is written, have been sent.

be + present participle is the continuous, and it is active: are participating, is writing.

So the test is not whether an auxiliary is present but what form follows it. A second check confirms it: ask whether the subject is doing the action or receiving it.

Only a transitive verb, one that takes an object, can be made passive. That is why the intransitive sketches beautifully could not be passive however it were rewritten.

Key facts

The passive is formed with a form of be plus the past participle of the main verb.
The by-agent is optional, so a sentence with no by-phrase can still be passive.
Be plus an -ing form is the continuous tense and is active, not passive.

Study next

Telling the passive from the present continuous by the participle that follows beTransitivity, and why an intransitive verb has no passivePassives with the agent omitted, common in reports and notices

Common traps

Seeing the auxiliary are in are participating and calling it passive
Rejecting the keyed sentence because it names no by-agent
Confusing was delivered with a simple past active such as delivered

This shift asks the recognition form here and the transformation form at English Q.17, where The baker baked the cake is turned into The cake was baked by the baker.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Active and passive voice — all 74 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.