SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 9 September 2024, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 8 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 6 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. Ishika saw the tiger in the forest.

(a)The tiger saw by Ishika in the forest.
(b)The tiger sees Ishika in the forest.
(c)The tiger was seen by Ishika in the forest.
(d)The tiger was seen by the forest in Ishika.

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The active verb is saw, simple past. The passive of a simple past is 'was/were + past participle'.

See is irregular — see, saw, seen — so the participle needed is seen, not saw.

The object 'the tiger' becomes the subject, and it is singular, so the auxiliary is was. Ishika moves behind 'by', and the adverbial 'in the forest' stays where it was.
'The tiger was seen by Ishika in the forest' → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The tiger saw by Ishika in the forest. — There is no auxiliary at all, and 'saw' is a past tense form, not a past participle. The string is not a passive; it reads as an active sentence with a missing object.
(b)
The tiger sees Ishika in the forest. — This is active, present tense, and it reverses who did the seeing. Voice change never swaps the roles round like that.
(d)
The tiger was seen by the forest in Ishika. — The passive machinery is right but the nouns are shuffled: the forest becomes the agent and Ishika becomes the place, which the original sentence never said.

Concept

The passive is built from two parts: the verb be, put into the tense of the original verb, plus the past participle.

Simple past active 'saw' therefore becomes 'was seen' when the new subject is singular, 'were seen' when it is plural.

The rest is bookkeeping. The old object becomes the new subject and controls the number of 'be'; the old subject moves behind 'by'; adverbials of place and time stay put.

Three of the options are near-misses of different kinds — a missing auxiliary, a reversed pair of roles, a swapped agent — so eliminating on form works faster than translating each one.

Key facts

The passive is 'be' in the original tense plus the past participle.
See is irregular: see, saw, seen — the passive needs seen.
The original object becomes the subject and fixes whether the auxiliary is was or were.
The original subject follows 'by' as the agent.

Study next

Passive of the present perfect (has been seen) and of the future (will be seen)Irregular participles SSC tests: saw and seen, went and gone, did and doneSentences with two objects and the two passives they allow

Common traps

Writing the past simple where the past participle belongs
Letting an adverbial phrase take the agent slot so the forest does the seeing
Changing the tense while changing the voice

SSC keeps the vocabulary plain here so the whole item rests on the auxiliary and the participle.

The reverse direction — passive to active — is asked in this same shift at English Q.2 (9 Sep 2024, 9:00).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.