SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 September 2025, Shift 3 · English Comprehension · Question 14 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 11 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Convert the sentence provided below from its passive voice structure to an active voice structure: The audience was made to believe that the product was revolutionary.

(a)The presenter made the audience believe the product was revolutionary.
(b)The audience believed the product to be revolutionary.
(c)The audience was forced to believe in the product.
(d)The presenter convinced the audience of the product's use.

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The passive was made to believe comes from an active made ... believe.

After make, the active takes a bare infinitive: made the audience believe. The passive puts to back in: was made to believe.

The passive names no doer, so the active must supply one. The keyed sentence supplies the presenter and keeps the past tense and the whole claim.

"The presenter made the audience believe the product was revolutionary" → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
The audience believed the product to be revolutionary. — believed the product to be revolutionary drops made, so nobody causes the belief. It reports what the audience thought, not that they were led to think it.
(c)
The audience was forced to believe in the product. — was forced to believe is still passive, so nothing has been converted. It also shrinks believe that the product was revolutionary to believe in the product.
(d)
The presenter convinced the audience of the product's use. — convinced the audience of the product's use changes both the verb and the claim. The original says the product was revolutionary, not that it had a use.

Concept

Make in the sense 'cause or force' takes a bare infinitive in the active: They made him wait.

In the passive, the to returns: He was made to wait. Converting either way means adding or dropping that to.

When the passive has no by-phrase, the active has to supply a subject. Which doer the options name, here the presenter, does not change the grammar.

The keyed sentence also drops that before the product was revolutionary. After believe, that is optional, so its absence changes nothing.

Key facts

Active: make + object + bare infinitive (made the audience believe).
Passive: be made + to-infinitive (was made to believe).
That is optional after believe: believe (that) the product was revolutionary.

Study next

See and hear in the passive: They saw him leave becomes He was seen to leaveTurning an agentless passive into the active by supplying a subjectVoice change with a that-clause after believe, say or think

Common traps

Choosing believed the product to be because it sounds natural, though it loses the causing verb made
Picking was forced to believe for its meaning, without seeing it is still passive

The same verb make is turned from passive to active at 9 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.15: He will be made President by the people becomes The people will make him President.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Active and passive voice — all 92 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.