Advanced passives review

Do you know how to use all the different forms of the passive? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you.

Look at these examples to see how the passive voice is used.

The interview was recorded yesterday.
Cleaner sources of energy must be developed.
An electrical fault is believed to have caused the power cut.

Try this exercise to test your grammar.

Grammar test 1: C1: Advanced passives: 1

Grammar explanation

We can use the passive voice to change the focus of the sentence.

Aliya Monier directed the film.
(focus on Aliya Monier)
The film was directed by Aliya Monier.
(focus on The film)

We often use the passive:

so that we can start a sentence with the most important or most logical information
when we prefer not to mention who or what does the action (for example, it's not known, it's obvious or we don't want to say)
in more formal or scientific writing.

Be + past participle

The most common way to form the passive is subject + be + past participle.

The new smoke alarm was installed yesterday.

The 'doer' of the action is called the agent. Most of the time, the agent is not mentioned, but if important, the agent can be mentioned using the preposition by.

The new smoke alarm was installed yesterday by the company director herself.

We can also use the passive voice with modal verbs such as can, must and should, by using modal + be + past participle.

A podcast can be made with minimal resources.
The accident must be reported to the police.
New laws should be created to regulate electric scooters.

The passive with get

In informal English, get is sometimes used instead of be to form the passive.

My bicycle got stolen last night.
(= My bicycle was stolen last night.)

The impersonal passive

The impersonal passive is used with reporting verbs such as allege, believe, claim, consider, estimate, expect, know, report, say, think, understand, etc. It reports what an unspecified group of people say or believe.

The impersonal passive has two forms:

it + be + past participle + (that) + subject + verb:

It is estimated that millions of people visit the site every year.
It is believed that the walls date from the third century BCE.
It is reported that mosquitoes transmit the disease.

someone/something + be + past participle + infinitive:

Millions of people are estimated to visit the site every year.
The walls are believed to date from the third century BCE.
Mosquitoes are reported to transmit the disease.

Note that the infinitive can be simple (as above), perfect (for a past action) or continuous (for an action in progress).

Millions are estimated to visit the site this year. (simple infinitive)
The walls are believed to have been built in the third century BCE. (perfect infinitive)
Mosquitoes are reported to be transmitting the disease. (continuous infinitive)

Do this exercise to test your grammar again.

Grammar test 2: C1: Advanced passives: 2

Language level

C1 Advanced

For it to be:

The creatures are said to have come out at night...

The original would need to be:

People say the creatures have come out at night.

Because the sentence is “people SAID” , so it’s a past action, you can’t really use present in passive when you have a verb that is clearly past.

Thanks for clear passive voice for impersonal passive form. I didn't understand how to change before.

Hello team,

May I know that if we can change this sentence into passive voice?

"How can I make you understand this situation well?"

If yes, could you kindly tell me the correct answer?

Thank you very much in advance.

Hello Bo Bo Kyaw,

The sentence has two transitive verbs (make and understand) which can be changed into passive voice:

How can you be made to understand this situation well? [passive voice with make]
How can I make this situation be well understood (by you)? [passive voice with understand]

The second of these does not sound great to me. Though grammatically correct, it is stylistically clumsy.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

How could you be made to be understood this situation well?

Just my opinion:3

"How can you be made/helped to understand the situation better?" probably. Though it's better not to directly force passive in sentences with causatives.

Hello team,

I am confused about which is the correct answer to these questions.

I am asked to change these sentences into passive voices. But I really find it confusing to keep the correct word order.

Q1. Archaeologists have just discovered a new tomb in Egypt.

Answer 1 >>A new tomb has just been discovered by Archaeologists in Egypt.
Answer 2 >>A new tomb in Egypt has just been discovered by archaeologists.

Q2. The organizers must display a great number of goods in a minimum space.

Answer 1>> A great number of goods must be displayed in a minimum space by the organizers.
Answer 2>> A great number of goods must be displayed by the organizers in a minimum space.

There are some other sentences like those two above, which I can't exactly say which answer is the answer with the correct word order.

So please kindly explain which one is a correct answer and why.

I hope your answer will help me a lot in answering other similar questions as well.

**The most difficult part for me is that I am not quite sure about which phrase should come first in the sentence.

Thank you in advance sir.

Hello Bo Bo Kyaw,

Q1. Archaeologists have just discovered a new tomb in Egypt.

Answer 1 >>A new tomb has just been discovered by Archaeologists in Egypt.
Answer 2 >>A new tomb in Egypt has just been discovered by archaeologists.

There's not right or wrong order here. The phrase 'in Egypt' can be put in various positions. I think the most sensible thing to do in a transformation task like this is to put it in the same place as it is in the original sentence: at the end.

Q2. The organizers must display a great number of goods in a minimum space.

Answer 1>> A great number of goods must be displayed in a minimum space by the organizers.
Answer 2>> A great number of goods must be displayed by the organizers in a minimum space.

The same point applies here to 'in a minimum space'.