View of the Venetian hotel in LAs Vegas, with its artificial lagoon and gondolas

Activities: “The English passive voice: What is it, how to form it, and when to use it?”

By: Erin Kuester
Associated Articles

These activities are part of our English Grammar series. The skills we are practicing here are covered in our article:

Activity 1: Active to passive

Let’s practice changing active voice sentences to the passive voice! For this exercise, do not use a by-phrase.

  • Someone broke the window.

  • Rachel emailed the report to the manager.

  • The mechanics fixed my car.

  • We painted the house last week.

  • David waters the garden every night in the summer.

  • My grandparents gave my brother a bicycle for his birthday.

    Also acceptable: A bicycle was given to my brother for his birthday.

  • We ate the whole cake at the party.

  • The librarian will give you those books.

    Also acceptable: Those books will be given to you

  • People throw thousands of coins in this fountain every year.

  • Someone stole Hazel’s phone.

Activity 2: Uh oh!

Uh oh! It looks like someone robbed the store and the police are trying to figure out who did it! Read the newspaper story below and, for each blank space, write in the passive form of the verb in parentheses. (Be careful to use the right tense!)

A robbery (commit)1 on Main Street!

Yesterday, Main Street Jewelers (rob). The owner arrived at the store at 7:00 a.m. and the door (break)2. It looked like a brick (throw)3 through the door’s window and glass (scatter)3 inside the store. The police (call)4 immediately.

A photo of a display case at a jewelry store. Mostly we can see several jeweled rings and one necklace.

The owner reported that everything in the display case (steal), but all the jewelry in the locked safe (take, not).

Police are currently searching for any leads that might help find the suspect. Both footprints and fingerprints (find) at the scene of the crime. Police are also checking the security cameras in the store, but it looks like the footage from that night (erase).

When the suspects are found, they (charge) with grand theft robbery.

1 The title can also read: A robbery has been committed on Main Street!.

2 The past simple (was broken or was scattered) is acceptable here, but this is not technically a passive verb, because it describes the condition of the door/glass, not the action that happened to the door.

3 We use the past perfect in the glass had been broken, the brick had been thrown, and the glass had been scattered, because we are discussing the past of the past.

4 We say the police were called, because even though police is a collective noun, we usually use it with plural verbs.

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