The passive 1

1. PASSIVE VOICE
We use The Passive voice when the personor object that experiences the action is
important, but the “subject” that performs the action is not relevant ( however, it can be
added in the last part of the sentence with the preposition BY).
STRUCTURE:
1. Present Simple Passive: Subject + Present “to be”+ PastParticiple VERB + BY
phrase.
The books are read every morning by the teacher.
2. Present Continuous Passive: Subject + Present “to be” + BEING + Past Participle
VERB
The books are being read now by the students.
3. Past Simple Passive: Subject + Past “to be” + Past Participle VERB + BY phrase.
Last year, the books were read every Thursday BY the students.
4. Present Perfect Passive: Subject + “ to have” + BEEN + Past Participle VERB
The books have been read by all students.
Exercise:
Which of the following sentencesare Passive andwhich Active.
Which Passive sentencesare Presentand which sentences are Past.
a. John has been to India many times this year.
b. Many birds were seen yesterday in the Casa de Campo.
c. We are visiting 10 students this afternoon.
d. The cakes are usually bought by my father before the party begins.
e. The robberis usually seen every afternoon in the neighborhood.
f. The police arrested the burglar last night.
g. She has been found today near her house.
h. He has eaten 4 bananas in 10 minutes.

2. ACTIVE VOICE TO PASSIVE VOICE
Past Tense (verb take)
The shoplifter took several items from the shop last night. (Active)
Several items from the shop were taken by the shoplifter last night. (Passive)
Present Tense (verb search)
The police usually searchall the bags before the concertbegins. (Active)
All the bags are searchedby the police before the concertbegins. (Passive)
USES OF THE PASSIVE SENTENCE:
In a passive sentence, the personor thing acted on comes first, and the actor is added at the
end, introduced with the preposition “by.”The passive form of the verb is signaled by a form
of “to be”:
When do I use passive voice?
In some sentences, passive voice can be perfectly acceptable. You might use it in the
following cases:
-The actor is unknown:
The cave paintings of Lascaux were made in the Upper Old Stone Age. [We don’tknow who
made them.]
-The actor is irrelevant:
An experimental solar power plant will be built in the Australian desert. [We are not
interested in who is building it.]
-You want to be vague about who is responsible:
Mistakes were made. [Common in bureaucratic writing!]
-You are talking about a general truth:
Rules are made to be broken. [By whomever, whenever.]
-You want to emphasize the person or thing acted on. For example, it may be your main
topic:
Insulin was first discovered in 1921 by researchers at the University of Toronto. It is still the
only treatment available for diabetes.