Select the option that expresses the given sentence in active voice. His father’s arm was bandaged by the kind nurse.
- (a)The kind nurse bandaged his father’s arm.
- (b)The kind nurse bandages his father’s arm.
- (c)The kind nurse has bandaged his father’s arm.
- (d)The kind nurse had bandaged his father’s arm.
Answer
Why
Correct — A. The passive verb is was bandaged — a form of 'be' plus the past participle, and 'was' fixes it as simple past.
Changing voice never changes the time, so the active verb stays simple past: bandaged.
The agent in the by-phrase, the kind nurse, becomes the subject; the passive subject, his father's arm, becomes the object.
That gives 'The kind nurse bandaged his father's arm' — option (a).
Why the others are wrong
- (b)The kind nurse bandages his father’s arm. — bandages is simple present. The printed sentence is past ('was bandaged'), and a voice change rearranges the subject, verb and agent without moving the tense.
- (c)The kind nurse has bandaged his father’s arm. — has bandaged is present perfect, whose passive would be 'has been bandaged'. The paper printed a single auxiliary, 'was', so there is no perfect to carry across.
- (d)The kind nurse had bandaged his father’s arm. — had bandaged is past perfect, whose passive would be 'had been bandaged'. Simple past passive has one auxiliary; past perfect passive has two.
Concept
Voice change moves the players, not the time.
A passive verb is a form of 'be' plus a past participle, and it is the 'be' form that carries the tense: was bandaged is simple past, is bandaged simple present, has been bandaged present perfect, had been bandaged past perfect.
To make it active, lift the agent out of the by-phrase and make it the subject, move the passive subject into object position, and put the main verb in the same tense the 'be' form showed.
Where a passive has no by-phrase, the active supplies a neutral subject such as they, we or someone.
All four options give the same subject and the same object. The item is decided entirely on the verb form, so read the auxiliary before you read anything else.
Key facts
- A passive verb is a form of 'be' plus a past participle, and the 'be' form carries the tense.
- 'was bandaged' is simple past passive, so the active verb is 'bandaged'.
- The agent in the by-phrase becomes the subject of the active sentence.
Study next
Common traps
- Upgrading the tense, writing 'has bandaged' where the passive showed only simple past.
- Keeping 'by the kind nurse' in the active sentence instead of promoting it to subject.
- Swapping the subject and object but leaving the participle untouched.
SSC prints the passive and asks for the active in the same shape at 09 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.1 ('The homework must be done by you') and 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.14 ('The car was repaired by the mechanic').
A question form of the same task is set at 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.18, and the reverse direction — active to passive — is asked at English Q.6 of this shift.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.