Question

Change the following sentence into passive voice :

The girls had lost the match. [Basic]

• A. The match have been lost by the girls.
• B. The match has been lost by the girls.
• C. The match had been lost by the girls.
• D. The match had lost by the girls.

Answer 1

The correct option is C The match had been lost by the girls.

When a sentence is written, it can either be in active or passive voice. Active voice describes the sentence where the subject (The girls) performs the action stated by the verb (lost). Passive voice describes a sentence where the subject is acted upon by the verb. While changing an active-voice sentence to passive, the subject (The girls) becomes the object, the action is now performed by the new subject (the match), and the simple past (had) is changed to past perfect tense (had been). The resulting sentence in passive is : The match had been lost by the girls, where the subject and object have been replaced with each other and 'by the' has been added, so the meaning of the sentence does not change. Hence the option with the correct sentence is option C. Option A is incorrect because 'have been' is present perfect used when the subject (The match) is plural, whereas the sentence is in the past tense, and the 'match' is singular, so we need to replace 'had' with 'had been'. Option B is incorrect because 'has been' is a present perfect tense whereas the sentence should be in past perfect tense. Option D is incorrect because 'been' is missing after 'had', as the voice of the sentence has changed, the tense changes from simple to perfect tense here.