Active and Passive Voice
ICSE Class 6 · English · Chapter 8
What this chapter covers
- Active and passive voice: meaning
- Changing voice in simple tenses
- Passive with continuous and perfect tenses
- Passive of questions and commands
- When to use the passive
Key points
- Voice shows whether the subject of a sentence does the action or receives it.
- In the active voice, the subject is the doer. In the passive voice, the subject is the receiver.
- A passive verb is a form of be followed by a past participle.
- Only a transitive verb, which has an object, can be changed into the passive.
- To change voice, make the object the subject, use the right form of be with the past participle, and put the doer after by.
- Pronouns after by take their object form: me, us, him, her, them.
- Continuous passives add being; perfect passives add been.
- In questions, who becomes by whom. Commands begin with Let, and polite requests begin with You are requested to.
- Use the passive when the doer is unknown or unimportant, in news reports and in science records. Use the active voice most of the time.
Questions answered
Is this sentence active or passive: "The letter was posted by Uncle Gopal"?
Passive. The subject, the letter, receives the action, and the verb is was posted.
Can "The bird flew away" be changed into the passive voice? Why or why not?
No. The verb flew is intransitive. It has no object to become the new subject.
Change into the passive: "Sunita cleans the blackboard."
The blackboard is cleaned by Sunita.
Change into the passive: "They were building a new bridge."
A new bridge was being built by them.
Change into the passive: "The doctor has examined the patient."
The patient has been examined by the doctor.
Change into the passive: "Did you lock the cupboard?"
Was the cupboard locked by you?
Change into the passive: "Who painted this picture?"
By whom was this picture painted?
Change into the passive: "Water the plants." Give one reason a writer might prefer "My purse was stolen" to "Someone stole my purse".
Let the plants be watered. The doer is unknown, so the passive avoids the empty word someone.