SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 18 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.

Select the option that expresses the following sentence in passive voice. Gill scored 3 centuries in Tata IPL 2023

(a)3 centuries had been scored by Gill in Tata IPL 2023.
(b)3 centuries were scored by Gill in Tata IPL 2023.
(c)3 centuries has been scored by Gill in Tata IPL 2023.
(d)3 centuries were being scored by Gill in Tata IPL 2023.

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The active verb is scored — simple past. A passive conversion changes who sits in the subject slot, never the tense.

Simple past passive = was/were + past participle.

The active object, '3 centuries', becomes the new subject. It is plural, so the auxiliary is were, not was.

'3 centuries were scored by Gill in Tata IPL 2023' → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
3 centuries had been scored by Gill in Tata IPL 2023. — had been scored is past perfect passive, the passive of 'Gill had scored'. The paper gives you a simple past, and a voice change must not move the verb further back in time.
(c)
3 centuries has been scored by Gill in Tata IPL 2023. — has been scored is present perfect and singular. The new subject '3 centuries' is plural, so even a present-perfect reading would have to read 'have been scored'.
(d)
3 centuries were being scored by Gill in Tata IPL 2023. — were being scored is past continuous passive, the passive of 'Gill was scoring'. The original reports a completed count, not an action still in progress.

Concept

Voice conversion moves the object into the subject slot and demotes the doer into a 'by' phrase. It does not move the sentence in time.

So the drill is two steps. Name the tense of the active verb, then rebuild that same tense as be + past participle, putting be into the original tense.

The last step is agreement. The passive auxiliary agrees with the new subject — the old object — and never with the agent that follows 'by'.

The item tests grammar only. The cricket claim sits inside the paper's own sentence, and every option repeats it unchanged, so nothing here asks you to verify it.

Key facts

A simple past active becomes was/were + past participle in the passive.
The passive auxiliary agrees with the new subject, not with the agent after 'by', so plural '3 centuries' takes were.
had been + past participle is past perfect passive, a different tense rather than a stylistic variant of the simple past.
was/were being + past participle is past continuous passive, used only when the active verb is continuous.

Study next

Passive forms of the perfect tenses: has been, have been and had been + past participleNumber agreement of the passive auxiliary when the active object is pluralConverting questions and imperatives to the passive, where the word order also changes

Common traps

Reaching for 'had been' because the season is over — a finished event is not automatically past perfect.
Making the auxiliary agree with Gill, the agent, instead of with the new subject '3 centuries'.
Changing the wording of the original while converting, when only the structure is meant to move.

Simple-past actives turned passive appear at 13 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.8 ('Martha made pancakes yesterday') and at 26 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.18 ('A famous company conducted the workshop').

This shift asks the conversion in reverse at English Q.15, turning a present perfect passive back into the active.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.