Purpose
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to correctly form passive voice sentences and know when passive voice is genuinely preferred over active voice.
Lesson Explanation
Active voice puts the person doing the action first: The chef cooked the meal. Passive voice puts the receiver of the action first, using be + past participle: The meal was cooked by the chef.
Passive voice is genuinely preferred when the doer of the action is unknown, unimportant, or already obvious from context:
The window was broken. (we may not know who did it) English is spoken here. (the doer — people in general — is unimportant)
The tense of “be” changes to match the sentence’s actual tense: is cooked (present), was cooked (past), will be cooked (future) — the participle itself (cooked) stays the same throughout.
Practice Questions
1. Which comes first in active voice: the doer, or the receiver of the action?
View Answer
The doer.
2. Which comes first in passive voice: the doer, or the receiver of the action?
View Answer
The receiver.
3. How is passive voice formed?
View Answer
be + past participle
4. Convert to passive voice: “The chef cooked the meal.”
View Answer
The meal was cooked by the chef.
5. When is passive voice genuinely preferred?
View Answer
When the doer is unknown, unimportant, or already obvious from context.
6. Convert to passive voice: “Someone broke the window.” (doer unknown/unimportant)
View Answer
The window was broken.
7. What part of the passive structure changes to match tense: “be” or the past participle?
View Answer
“be” changes; the past participle stays the same.
8. Write the passive form for future tense of “clean”: “The room ___ tomorrow.”
View Answer
will be cleaned
9. Write the passive form for present tense of “speak”: “English ___ here.”
View Answer
is spoken
10. Convert to active voice: “The book was written by her.”
View Answer
She wrote the book.
11. Does passive voice tell us who did the action, in “The window was broken”?
View Answer
Not necessarily — the doer is often omitted.
12. Convert to passive voice, past tense: “They built the house.”
View Answer
The house was built.