English MCQs – Page 27 (Q261-270)

The correct answer is 'I was invited to the party by him' because the active sentence 'He invited me to the party' is in the Simple Past tense, and its passive form follows was/were + past participle, giving 'was invited'. Note that the object pronoun 'me' in the active sentence becomes the subject pronoun 'I' in the passive sentence, a pronoun-case shift that is frequently overlooked by students focused only on the verb transformation. The distractor options incorrectly shift the tense to Present Perfect or Simple Present, or fail to convert the pronoun's case properly.

The correct answer is 'The task will have been completed by them by Monday' because the active sentence 'They will have completed the task by Monday' is in the Future Perfect tense, and its passive form follows the structure will + have + been + past participle, giving 'will have been completed'. This is one of the most complex passive constructions tested in exams, since it stacks three auxiliary elements together. The distractor options omit 'have been', shift the tense to Simple Future or Present Perfect, or otherwise break this precise auxiliary chain.

The correct answer is 'The children ate the cake' because converting a Simple Past passive sentence back to active voice requires making the agent, previously introduced by 'by', the new subject, and using the Simple Past active verb form 'ate' rather than the passive 'was eaten'. The distractor options incorrectly use present tense 'eats', an ungrammatical past participle without an auxiliary, or a Past Continuous form that changes the original meaning. Active voice conversion reverses the passive process: the 'by' agent becomes the subject, and the object becomes the direct object.

The correct answer is 'Ali wrote the letter' because converting the passive sentence 'The letter was written by Ali' back to active voice makes 'Ali', the agent, the new subject, paired with the Simple Past active verb 'wrote' to match the original passive tense. The distractor options incorrectly shift to Present Perfect, Past Continuous, or Simple Present, all of which fail to preserve the Simple Past tense signaled by 'was written' in the original passive sentence. Matching tense correctly is just as essential when converting passive to active as it is in the reverse direction.

The correct answer is 'He has made a mistake' because the passive sentence 'A mistake has been made by him' is in the Present Perfect tense, so its active form must also use Present Perfect, giving 'has made', with 'he' becoming the subject and 'a mistake' becoming the direct object. The distractor options incorrectly shift the tense to Simple Past, Past Perfect, or Simple Present, each breaking the tense-matching rule central to passive-to-active conversion. Present Perfect passive-to-active conversions like this one are common in formal and journalistic English.

The correct answer is 'She sang the song beautifully' because the passive sentence 'The song was sung beautifully by her' is in the Simple Past tense, requiring the active form to use the Simple Past verb 'sang', with 'she' becoming the subject and 'the song' the direct object. The adverb 'beautifully' retains its position describing the manner of singing in both voices. The distractor options incorrectly shift the tense to Simple Present, Past Continuous, or Present Perfect, all of which fail to match the original passive sentence's Simple Past tense.

The correct answer is 'They built the house in 2010' because the passive sentence 'The house was built by them in 2010' is in the Simple Past tense, so the active version must also use the Simple Past verb 'built', with 'they' as the subject and 'the house' as the object. The time expression 'in 2010' remains unchanged in both voices, anchoring the action to a specific past year. The distractor options incorrectly use Present Perfect, Past Continuous, or Simple Present, each breaking the required tense match with the original passive sentence.

The correct answer is 'be' because every passive voice construction, regardless of tense, is built using some form of the auxiliary verb 'be', is, am, are, was, were, been, or being, combined with the past participle of the main verb. This is the single unifying structural feature across all passive tenses, from Simple Present ('is written') to Future Perfect ('will have been written'). Recognizing 'be' plus past participle as the universal passive formula, regardless of how many additional auxiliaries are stacked on top for more complex tenses, is fundamental to mastering passive voice questions.

The correct answer is 'subject' because in passive voice, the roles of subject and object are reversed: the direct object of the active sentence becomes the grammatical subject of the passive sentence, while the original subject either becomes the agent introduced by 'by' or is omitted entirely. For example, in 'She wrote a novel', the object 'a novel' becomes the subject 'A novel was written'. Understanding this object-to-subject shift is the conceptual foundation underlying every specific passive voice transformation rule tested in competitive English exams.

The correct answer is 'The subject' because in an active sentence, the subject is defined as the doer of the action, the person or thing performing the verb, as in 'The teacher teaches the students', where 'the teacher' actively performs the teaching. This contrasts with the object, which receives the action, and forms the basis for the fundamental distinction between active and passive voice: active voice emphasizes the doer as subject, while passive voice emphasizes the receiver as subject. This core definition underlies the entire active-versus-passive voice system tested extensively in grammar exams.