The Passive

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 1

I drank two cups of coffee ( this is an active sentence)

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') ) 

What do you know about the passive?

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

Write down the answers to these questions

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

Write down the answers to these questions

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

Write down the answers to these questions

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.

ex. 8 page 71

1. e The cotton in the woman’s dress is grown on fair-trade farms. 

2 b On fair-trade farms the people are being paid a decent wage. 

3 f The cloth is cut and sewn into a lovely dress.

4 a Fair-trade clothes are sold all over the world.

5 d When Mahesh was eight years old, he was paid a low salary. 

6 c Mahesh’s life has been changed by fair trade.