ENGLISH GRAMMAR WORKSHEET - THE PASSIVE VOICE

A)	A question frequently asked:

How do we know if a sentence is in the active or passive voice?
Look at the following sentences:

	Peter	eats	an apple	everyday
	Subject	Verb	Direct Comp.	Ind. Comp.
	An apple	is eaten	by Peter	everyday
	Subject	Aux. To Be + Main Verb	Passive Agent	Ind. Comp.

Answer this question:	Who performs the action in the first sentence?
					Who performs the action in the first sentence?

Exactly! In both sentences above, the “performer” of the action is Peter, so, in (1) the subject of the sentence (Peter) is ACTIVE, because he performs an action. However, the subject in (2) is PASSIVE, because it does not “perform” the action, the PASSIVE AGENT does!

B) Now, pay close attention to the verb in (1). In what TENSE is it? It is in the Simple Present. If you look carefully, you will see that in (2) there are TWO VERBS:

TO BE = is the auxiliary verb in the passive voice and it is in the same tense of the active verb (Simple Present):

The Main Verb = it is always in the Past Participle (see list of irregular verbs);

C) How do we change an active sentence into a passive sentence?

1 First you must identify all the elements of the active sentence like we did in 0;

2 then you must have the same number of elements for the passive voice;

3. now you will find the SUBJECT for the passive voice in the DIRECT COMPLEMENT of the active sentence;

4 after that you will find that the SUBJECT of the active sentence becomes the PASSIVE AGENT because

It is the one that “performs” the action;
5. INDIRECT COMPLEMENTS usually do not change and they can, sometimes, move
    to the beginning of the sentence;

6. Finally, you are ready to transform the verb, following the rules explained in B:

To be + past participle.

Exercises:	Put into the passive voice:

a) Claire reads a book every weekend.
b) James washed the car yesterday.
c) The dog is eating a large bone.
d) The snow was covering the road last night.
e) I have seen the teacher at school.
f) They had painted the house once.
g) Kate will offer Tim a new car.

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