Passive voice exercises

1. Welcome to
Miss Sheep’s
passive voice class

2. Let’s start with
reviewing past
participles. What are
the past participles
for these irregular
verbs?

3. sleep think
bring give
spend forget
shrink slide
hold see
rise write
speak mean
meet teach
cut bleed

4. have shut
be beat
take begin
read know
make leave
sell spread
stand become
wake hear
shine buy

5. Answers
sleep slept think thought
bring brought give gave
spend spent forget forgotten
shrink shrunk slide slid
hold held see saw
rise risen write written
speak spoken mean meant
meet met teach taught
cut cut bleed bled

6. Answers
have had shut shut
be been beat beaten
take taken begin begun
read read know known
make made leave left
sell sold spread spread
stand stood become become
wake woken hear heard
shine shone buy bought

7. How do you change
these active verb
tenses into passive
verb tenses?

8. Active: Passive:
for example: eat is/are eaten
is eating
has eaten
ate
was eating
had eaten
will eat
should eat

9. Answers
is eating is being eaten
has eaten has been eaten
ate was/were eaten
was eating was being eaten
had eaten had been eaten
will eat will be eaten
should eat should be eaten

10. Now change the order to make correct
passive sentences:
1. Miss Fish / boyfriend / by / is loved / her
2. was read / Mr Slug / a book / by
3. Mr Penguin / by / will be cleaned / the house
4. by / was donated / money / Brian

11. Answers
1. Miss Fish is loved by her boyfriend.
2. A book was read by Mr Slug.
3. The house will be cleaned by Mr Penguin.
4. Money was donated by Brian.

13. When we change from active
to passive, we may need to
make changes to the verb
because the subject has
changed.

14. For example:
My friend was looking at some birds.
‘My friend’ is singular.
However, ‘some birds’ is plural.
So, when ‘some birds’ becomes the new subject of the
passive sentence, we will have to change the verb from
singular to plural:
Some birds were being looked at by my friend.

15. Now it’s your turn. Be careful with the verbs!
1. He is visiting his parents.
2. Minh has eaten the cakes.
3. Boris and his friend were singing the national
anthem.
4. Teresa watches many movies.

16. Answers
1. His parents are being visited by him.
2. The cakes have been eaten by Minh.
3. The national anthem was being sung by Boris and
his friend.
4. Many movies are watched by Teresa.

19. My boyfriend gave me a rose.
subject: my boyfriend
verb: gave
indirect object: me
direct object: a rose

21. Active:
My boyfriend gave me a rose.
Indirect object first:
I was given a rose by my
boyfriend.
Direct object first:
A rose was given to me
by my boyfriend.

24. For these questions, use the indirect object as the
new subject of a passive sentence:
1. Mr Penguin gave Mr Elephant a new glass.
2. Professor Owl taught his students a lesson.
For these questions, use the direct object as the
new subject of a passive sentence:
1. The pirate told Brian a secret.
2. Miss Sheep sent an email to Janice.

25. Answers
1. A new glass was given to Mr Elephant by
Mr Penguin.
2. A lesson was taught to his students by
Professor Owl.
Answers
1. Brian was told a secret by the pirate.
2. An email was sent to Janice by Miss Sheep.

28. Mr Slug didn’t give flowers
to Miss Sheep.
Take a second to think about how you
would change it to passive voice.
Remember that when the we change a
sentence to passive voice there may be
some grammatical changes.

29. Active
Mr Slug didn’t give flowers to Miss Sheep
sub.
Passive
Miss Sheep wasn’t given flowers by Mr Slug.
In the active sentence, because it is negative, we
need to use the auxiliary very ‘didn’t’. However,
because all passive voice sentences use the verb
‘be’, this takes the role of auxiliary verb, and so
we don’t need to include ‘do’.

30. Try changing these sentences to passive voice:
1. She does not like chocolate.
2. Michael didn’t believe in ghosts.
3. Carlos didn’t pop the football.
4. Helena does not like boring people.

31. Answers
1. Chocolate isn’t liked by her.
2. Ghosts weren’t believed in by Michael.
3. The football wasn’t popped by Carlos.
4. Boring people are not liked by Helena.