Active & Passive Voice: Advanced
Every tense, questions and commands, and choosing the voice deliberately.
Voice moves the emphasis
The voice determines whether the grammatical subject performs or receives the action.
Active: The engineers designed the bridge.Passive: The bridge was designed by the engineers.
Both report the same fact. The first sentence is about the engineers; the second is about the bridge.
At this level the question is no longer how to convert but when to choose which.
The passive in every tense
past simple: was/were written
future: will be written
present continuous: is being written
past continuous: was being written
present perfect: has/have been written
past perfect: had been written
future perfect: will have been written
modal: must/can/should be written
The pattern: the tense lives entirely in the form of be; the main verb stays a past participle throughout.
Sentences with two objects
Some verbs take two objects: give, send, offer, tell, show, teach, and each can become the subject of a passive.
Active: They gave her a prize.Passive version 1 (person first, more natural in English):
She was given a prize.Passive version 2 (thing first):
A prize was given to her.Both are correct. The first is far more common in speech, because English prefers to put people in the subject position.
Notice that version 2 needs to before "her", dropping it produces an ungrammatical sentence.
Converting questions and commands
Questions. Convert to a statement, transform, then restore the question form.
Who broke the window?→ Someone broke the window
→ The window was broken by someone
→ By whom was the window broken?
Yes/no questions keep their auxiliary at the front:
Did they complete the work?→ Was the work completed?
Commands use let or should:
Close the gate. → Let the gate be closed.Do not touch it. → Let it not be touched.
These passive command forms are formal and now uncommon in speech. You will meet them in notices and older writing.
The impersonal passive
A construction used constantly in news and academic writing, when the source is a general opinion rather than a named person.
People say that he is wealthy.→ It is said that he is wealthy.
→ He is said to be wealthy.
The same works with believe, think, report, consider, know, expect.
It is believed that… · It is reported that…Why journalists use it: it allows a claim to be reported without asserting it or naming who said it.
Why a reader should notice it: "It is widely believed that…" often means the writer has no source. The construction lends authority to a claim without providing any evidence for it.
Choosing voice deliberately
Use the passive when:
- The doer is unknown. The window was broken during the night.
- The doer is irrelevant. The results were published in March.
- Writing a method. The solution was heated to 80°C. The procedure is the point.
- The receiver is the story. Two hundred homes were destroyed.
- Maintaining flow. Keeping the same subject across sentences reads more smoothly.
Use the active otherwise. It is shorter, clearer and assigns responsibility.
The point worth carrying away: "Mistakes were made" is grammatically identical to "the solution was heated" and rhetorically very different. The passive can conceal an agent, and noticing when it does is a reading skill.
Where each voice belongs
Scientific reports: passive by convention, focusing on method over experimenter.
News: active when the actor is known and accountable; passive when the actor is unknown or the victim is the story.
Official notices: often passive, which is why they feel impersonal.
Narrative: mostly active. The passive slows momentum.
Editing your own work: find each passive and ask whether the doer matters. If it does, rewrite it active. If it does not, leave it, deleting every passive is as crude a rule as using them everywhere.
Where it usually goes wrong
- Changing tense during conversion.
- Past tense instead of past participle. was wrote ✗
- Making an intransitive verb passive. No object, no passive.
- Keeping question word order.
- "Avoid all passives." Too crude a rule.
- Forgetting "to" in A prize was given to her.
What to remember
- Passive = be + past participle; "be" carries the tense.
- Two objects → two possible passives; person first is more natural.
- Impersonal passive: It is said that…, often hides the source.
- Choose the voice; do not avoid one on principle.
Watch one worked through
Here is one done slowly, with the reason for every move. Then one for you.
Rewrite in the passive, keeping the tense: "The committee will announce the results tomorrow."
- Identify the tense. "Will announce" is future.will announce → future simpleThe passive must keep the same tense. Identify it before you move anything.
- Move the object to the front.The results ...The results receive the action, so they become the new subject.
- Future passive is "will be" plus the past participle.The results will be announced ...Every passive is a form of "to be" plus the participle. For the future, that form is "will be".
- Add the agent if it matters, and the time.The results will be announced by the committee tomorrow."By the committee" can be dropped if the committee is obvious or unimportant.
Answer: The results will be announced by the committee tomorrow.
Passive of "They have repaired the road": The road ___ been repaired.
Show the answer
has
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