This lesson is to help you practice changing the active voice to the passive, and changing passive to active.
The passive: form
The active voice shows what something does. The passive voice shows what happens to something. We make the passive with a form of the verb be + past participle.
When changing a sentence written in the active voice into the passive:
- the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence
- the subject of the active sentence becomes the object of the passive sentence (or is dropped)
Example:
| Active | Five board members run the company. |
| Passive | The company is run by 5 board members. |
| Tense | Passive form: be + past participle (+by + agent) |
| present simple | The company is run by 5 board members. |
| present continuous | The company is being run by 5 board members. |
| past simple | The company was run by 5 board members. |
| past continuous | The company was being run by 5 board members. |
| present perfect | The company has been run by 5 board members. |
| past perfect | The company had been run by 5 board members. |
| going to | The company is going to be run by 5 board members. |
| will | The company will be run by 5 board members. |
Other form
| infinitive | The company is to be run by 5 board members. |
| -ing form | The chief executive insists on the company being run by 5 board members. |
| used to | The company used to be run by 5 board members. |
| modals | The company should be run by 5 board members. |
| need to/ have to | The company needs to/ has to be run by 5 board members. |
| need + -ing | The company needs running by 5 board members. |