Which of the following options is the most suitable conversion of the following sentence into active voice?
Had the technical errors been corrected by the software team before the product launch?
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
Correct Answer
Had the software team corrected the technical errors before the product launch?
Explanation
The original question is a passive interrogative sentence in the past perfect tense, indicated by the structure "Had... been corrected". When converting an interrogative sentence from passive to active voice, the tense must remain exactly the same. The active voice formula for a past perfect question is: Had + Subject + Past Participle (V3) + Object?
Following this rule, the agent "the software team" becomes the active subject, and "been corrected" simplifies to "corrected". This gives us the correct sentence structure matching Option 2.
The other choices are incorrect because they change the tense of the sentence. Option 1 shifts to the simple past tense ("Did... correct"). Option 3 alters it to the present perfect tense ("Has... corrected"). Option 4 shifts the sentence into the past continuous tense ("Was... correcting").
Key Points
When changing an interrogative sentence from passive to active voice, always match the helping verb to the original tense first. Spotting the past perfect auxiliary "Had" at the beginning of the sentence allows you to immediately dismiss options starting with "Did", "Has", or "Was".