SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 3 · 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.

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. A famous company conducted the workshop for its customers.

(a)The workshop were conducted by a famous company for its customers.
(b)The workshop was conducted by a famous company for its customers.
(c)The workshop is conducted by a famous company for its customers.
(d)The workshop had been conducted by a famous company for its customers.

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The active verb is conducted — simple past — so the passive must be was/were + conducted, never a present or a perfect form.

The object of the active sentence, the workshop, becomes the new subject. It is singular, so the auxiliary is was.

The doer moves behind by, and the adjunct 'for its customers' does not move at all: 'The workshop was conducted by a famous company for its customers' → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The workshop were conducted by a famous company for its customers. — were needs a plural subject, and the new subject 'the workshop' is singular. Everything else in the line is right, which is what makes this the commonest miss.
(c)
The workshop is conducted by a famous company for its customers. — 'is conducted' is the simple present passive. The active sentence is simple past, and a change of voice never changes the tense.
(d)
The workshop had been conducted by a famous company for its customers. — 'had been conducted' is the past perfect passive, which would place the workshop before some other past event. Nothing in the sentence sets up an earlier point to be before.

Concept

A change of voice moves the object into subject position and leaves the tense where it was. Simple past active becomes was/were + past participle.

The auxiliary then agrees with the new subject, not the old one. 'A famous company' governed 'conducted'; 'the workshop' governs 'was'.

Everything else travels unchanged — the doer joins by, and an adjunct such as 'for its customers' stays exactly where the active sentence put it.

A voice item is settled by two things you can see before reading any option: the tense of the active verb, and the number of the noun that is about to become the subject.

Key facts

Simple past active becomes was or were plus the past participle in the passive.
The passive auxiliary agrees with the new subject, which was the object of the active sentence.
A change of voice does not change the tense of a sentence.

Study next

Passive forms of simple past, present perfect and past perfectVoice change in questions and in imperative sentencesKeeping or dropping the by-agent in a passive sentence

Common traps

Matching the auxiliary to the agent 'a famous company' instead of to the new subject 'the workshop'.
Upgrading a simple past to 'had been' because the perfect form sounds more formal.

Voice conversion runs in both directions on this paper — active to passive here, passive to active at English Q.5.

The same simple-past passive is keyed on 26 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.18 ('3 centuries were scored by Gill') and on 26 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.2 ('Kunal was not slapped by Rohit').

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.