Active & Passive Voice

What this lesson covers

Active & Passive Voice is a 10-part Class 7 English lesson. Each part makes one point and then hands over to the next, so it can be read in a sitting or picked up again at the part you stopped on. It defines the idea in plain words before using it, works through an example step by step, breaks the topic into its parts and compares them, shows where it is used outside the textbook, names the mistakes that cost marks in an exam, ends with a recap of what to remember.

How it begins

The voice shows whether the subject performs the action or receives it. Active: The committee approved the plan. Passive: The plan was approved by the committee.Same event. What changes is what the sentence puts first, and the first position is where a reader's attention lands. Neither voice is better. The question is always which emphasis the writing needs.

The 10 parts

1. Where the emphasis falls
2. The conversion, step by step
3. Every tense in the passive
4. A full conversion with a tricky tense
5. Questions and negatives
6. Choosing the voice deliberately
7. Where each voice belongs
8. Where it usually goes wrong
9. What to remember
10. Watch one worked through