SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 5 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 active voice. How have they been ordered by the minister?

(a)How has the minister ordered them?
(b)How did the minister order them?
(c)How have the minister ordered them?
(d)How had the minister ordered them?

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The given sentence is present perfect passive: have been ordered. A voice change rearranges the parts but must not move the tense, so the active verb stays present perfect.

The agent after by becomes the subject. The minister is singular, so the auxiliary is has, not have.

The old subject they becomes the object them. Keeping the question word in front and the auxiliary before the new subject gives How has the minister ordered them? — option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
How did the minister order them? — Did the minister order is simple past. The passive given is present perfect, and a voice change is not a tense change, so dropping has here rewrites when the ordering happened.
(c)
How have the minister ordered them? — The new subject is the minister, a singular noun, so the auxiliary must be has. Have the minister ordered is a subject-verb agreement error, and that alone settles the option.
(d)
How had the minister ordered them? — Had ordered is past perfect, which pushes the action further back than the original. Present perfect passive converts to present perfect active, so the auxiliary stays has.

Concept

Voice change has three moving parts and one fixed one.

The agent after by becomes the subject; the old subject becomes the object, so they becomes them; and the verb is rebuilt in its active form.

What must not move is the tense. Have been ordered is present perfect passive, so the active is present perfect: has ordered.

In a wh-question the question word stays in front and the auxiliary comes before the new subject, which is why the answer keeps the shape How has the minister ordered them?

Every wrong option here fails on the auxiliary — did, have or had. Checking the auxiliary before you read the rest of the option settles the item quickly.

Key facts

Present perfect passive is have or has been plus the past participle.
A voice change rearranges subject, object and verb but leaves the tense as it was.
The minister is a singular subject, so the active auxiliary is has.
In an interrogative, the auxiliary stands before the subject: has the minister ordered.

Study next

Voice change in wh-questions, where the question word keeps its front positionPresent perfect passive against past perfect passive: has been done and had been doneSubject-verb agreement after a voice change, when the old agent becomes the new subject

Common traps

Shifting to simple past because the passive feels like a finished action
Writing have the minister after the subject changes from plural they to a singular noun
Turning the question into a statement instead of holding the interrogative order

SSC gives one passive sentence and four actives that differ mainly in the auxiliary.

Interrogative passives are set at 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.18 (By whom was grammar taught to you?), and the tense-must-not-move test at 11 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.15 (was being typed, keyed was typing).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.