SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 19 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 most appropriate option that can substitute the underlined segment in the given sentence. If no substitution is required, select ‘No substitution’. The chief guest concluded his speech as he requested to stop by the organisers.

(a)he is requested
(b)no substitution
(c)he will be requested
(d)he was requested

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The phrase by the organisers names the doer, so the chief guest is the one being asked, not the one asking. That forces a passive clause.

The narrative verb is concluded — simple past — so the passive carries the same past time: was requested.

Filled in, the clause reads 'as he was requested to stop by the organisers', which is what the sentence means → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
he is requested — 'is requested' is the present passive, and it clashes with 'concluded', which fixes the whole sentence in past time.
(b)
no substitution — Leaving the segment unchanged makes the guest the person who requested something, which the agent phrase 'by the organisers' flatly contradicts.
(c)
he will be requested — 'will be requested' pushes the request into the future, after a speech that the sentence says has already ended.

Concept

A by-phrase that names the doer is the clearest marker of a passive clause: subject + be + past participle + by + agent.

Read the printed sentence literally and it says the guest requested somebody to stop, with 'by the organisers' left dangling. The sentence's own agent marker is the evidence that a passive is missing.

The tense comes from the main clause. Concluded is simple past, so the subordinate passive is was requested rather than 'is' or 'will be'.

Substitution items offer 'No substitution' as a genuine option, so test the printed version first. Here it fails on the agent phrase, not on style, and a sentence can read smoothly and still be ungrammatical.

Key facts

A by-phrase naming the doer signals a passive clause, whose subject receives the action.
The passive of a simple past verb is was or were plus the past participle.
In a past narrative the subordinate clause normally keeps the tense of the main clause.

Study next

Passive clauses that retain the by-agentSequence of tenses between a main clause and its subordinate clauseVerbs of asking in the passive: he was requested to, he was asked to

Common traps

Choosing 'No substitution' because the sentence reads smoothly when spoken aloud.
Picking a passive form but taking its tense from 'requested' rather than from 'concluded'.

Substitution items that offer 'No substitution' also appear on 17 Sep 2024, 12:30, English Q.16, where the printed 'it is the largest creatures' fails on number.

Voice is what decides this one, and a straight active-to-passive conversion is asked a question earlier, at English Q.18.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.