CAE unit 3: The Passive

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 1

Unit 1 grammar the passive

How is the Passive formed?

CAE grammar: the passive rehearsel

I drank two cups of coffee

It is an active sentence, it has the subject first ( the person that does the verb)

followed by the verb and finally the object ( the person or thing that the action happens to. 

S + V + O

But we don't always need to make sentences this way!

We might want to put the object first, or perhaps we don't want to say who did something. This can happen for lots of reasons. In this case we use the passive which puts the object first. 

• Two cups of coffee were drunk (we can add "by me" but this isn't necessary)

How to make the passive in English

We make the passive by putting the verb 'to be' into whatever tense we need and then adding the past participle. For regular verbs we make the past participle by adding 'ed' to the infinitive. So 'play' becomes played. 

When should we use the passive?

1. When we want to change the focus of the sentence. The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. (We are more interested in the painting than the artist in this sentence)
2. When who or what causes the action is unknown or unimportant or obvious: He was arrested (obvious agent, the police). My bike has been stolen (unknown agent) 
3. In factual or scientific writing. The chemical is placed in a test tube and the data entered into the computer.

continued .......

4. formal writing: The brochure will be finished next month.

5. In order to put the new information at the end of the sentence to improve the style: Three books are used regularly in the class. The books were written by Dr. Bell. ('Dr. Bell wrote the books' sound clumsy)

6. When the subject is very long: I was surprised by how well the students did in the test. (More natural than: 'how well the students did in the test surprised me')

Now you try: 

Passive 1 (present simple)

Make these active present simple sentences passive. You don't need to repeat 'somebody'.

Somebody sends emails.

Somebody buys the presents.

Somebody often steals cars.

More exercises - present simple

1. Somebody prefers chocolate.
   
2. Somebody plays loud music.
3. Somebody speaks English here.
4. Somebody loves the London parks.
5. Somebody reads a lot of books.
6. Somebody cooks dinner every day.
7.  Somebody cleans the classroom every day

Passive 2 (past simple)

Make these active present simple sentences passive. You don't need to repeat 'somebody'.

Somebody found the key.

Somebody made mistakes.

 exercises in the Past simple

1. Somebody cleaned the rooms.
2. Somebody fixed the laptop.
3. Somebody built that house.
4. Somebody wrote Esio Trot.
5. Somebody stole my iPad.
6. Somebody closed the windows.

Passive 3 (present perfect)

Make these present perfect sentences passive. You don't need to repeat 'somebody'.

Somebody has watered the plants.

Somebody has taken the money.

Passive and present perfect

1. Somebody has bought the presents.
   
2. Somebody has killed the President.
3.  Somebody has elected that man.
4. Somebody has ordered new books.
5.  Somebody has sent the email.
6. Somebody has eaten the strawberries.
7. Somebody has turned on the air conditioning.

Continuous passive

the passive voice we hardly use in the perfect forms, but sometimes it occurs.

1. My mother was cooking dinner.
2. look at this ashtray! My father has been smoking cigarettes for hours.
3. Someone had been putting chemicals into my tea!
4. This famous doctor has been treating him for an hour now.

answers

1. Dinner was being cooked.

2. Smoking cigarettes has being smoked for hours. 

3. Chemicals has being put into my tea!

4. He has being treated for an hour now by this famous doctor.

Every day speech

I was born ( in 1957)

He was sacked

She was accused of (fraud)

They were found guilty

He was buries/cremated

Theu were married (last Saturday)

You’re expected to (arrive on time)

writing it+past participle

It has been announced that.....

It is thought that....

It was said that.....

It was feared that....

It was agreed that....

It was rumoured that.....

Task:

TB: Study p. 173/174 : language reference : the Passive
Do ex. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (32)

P. 36: Reading and Use of English part 2: 8 gaps to fill in, most of the missing words are grammar words. You have to write 1 word!

• Articles
  
• Auxiliary or modal verbs
• Pronouns
• Conjunctions
• Possesive adjectives
• Prepositions

Sometimes you need to write nouns or verbs, too. Mind the spelling!