Change the following sentence into Passive voice:
He kept me waiting.

Question

Change the following sentence into Passive voice: 
He kept me waiting.

Accepted Answer

The correct answer is Option 3 because it accurately transforms the given active voice sentence into passive voice while maintaining the original meaning and grammatical structure. Let's break down why:

**Original Sentence Analysis:**
*   **Active Voice:** He kept me waiting.
*   **Subject:** He
*   **Verb:** kept (Simple Past Tense)
*   **Object:** me
*   **Object Complement/Participle:** waiting (describes the state of the object 'me')

**Rules for Changing to Passive Voice:**
1.  The object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence.
2.  The verb form changes to "be + past participle (V3)". The 'be' verb must match the tense of the active verb.
3.  The subject of the active sentence becomes the object of the preposition "by" (the agent).
4.  Any object complements or other parts of the sentence usually remain in their position relative to the new subject.

**Justification for Option 3: I was kept waiting by him.**

1.  **Object to Subject:** The object 'me' from the active sentence correctly becomes the subject 'I' in the passive sentence.
2.  **Verb Transformation:** The active verb 'kept' (Simple Past) is correctly transformed into 'was kept' (Simple Past Passive). 'Was' is the past tense form of 'be' for 'I', and 'kept' is the past participle of 'keep'.
3.  **Retaining the Complement:** The participle 'waiting', which describes the state of the object 'me' in the active voice, is correctly retained after the passive verb. It now describes the state of the new subject 'I'. The structure "keep someone waiting" becomes "be kept waiting" in passive.
4.  **Agent:** The active subject 'He' correctly becomes 'by him' as the agent.

This option perfectly follows all the rules for passive voice transformation, preserving the tense and the meaning that "he caused me to wait."

**Explanation for why other options are incorrect:**

*   **Option 1: I had been waited by him.**
    *   **Incorrect Tense:** The original sentence is in Simple Past ("kept"). "Had been waited" is Past Perfect Passive, which changes the tense of the sentence.
    *   **Incorrect Verb Form:** The main verb to be passivized is 'kept', not 'wait'. The structure "keep someone waiting" means to cause someone to wait, not to "wait someone." "Waited" as a past participle for the main action is incorrect here.

*   **Option 2: I waited by him.**
    *   **Incorrect Voice:** This sentence is in the active voice ("I waited"), not passive.
    *   **Incorrect Meaning:** It changes the meaning entirely. "I waited by him" means I performed the action of waiting, possibly near him, which is different from "he caused me to wait."

*   **Option 4: I was waited by him.**
    *   **Incorrect Verb Form:** While "was" correctly indicates Simple Past, the past participle "waited" is incorrect for the main verb. The original verb is 'kept', and its passive form should be 'was kept'. The verb 'wait' is generally intransitive (you wait *for* someone/something, or you wait *at* a place), and it's not typically used transitively as "wait someone" in the sense of "cause someone to wait." Therefore, "was waited" is grammatically awkward and does not correctly represent the passive form of "He kept me waiting." The correct passive form of 'kept' is 'was kept', with 'waiting' as the complement.