Active and Passive Voice
ICSE Class 8 · English · Chapter 4
What this chapter covers
- Voice: who does the action?
- How a passive sentence is built
- Passive across all tenses
- Passive with modals
- Passive of questions
- Passive of imperatives
- Passive with infinitives and gerunds
- Choosing active or passive
Key definitions
Voice is the form of a verb that shows whether the subject of a sentence does the action or receives it.
Active voice is the form of a verb in which the subject performs the action.
Passive voice is the form of a verb in which the subject receives the action instead of performing it.
The past participle is the third form of a verb, such as written, eaten, taken or built.
A transitive verb is a verb that takes an object, such as eat, build, write or catch.
An intransitive verb is a verb that does not take an object, such as sleep, arrive, laugh or fall.
An imperative sentence is a sentence that gives an order, a request, a piece of advice or an instruction.
An infinitive is the base form of a verb, usually with to in front of it, such as to read or to build.
A gerund is the -ing form of a verb used as a noun, such as swimming in Swimming is good exercise.
Key points
- Voice shows whether the subject does the action (active) or receives it (passive).
- A passive verb is a form of be plus the past participle; the form of be carries the tense.
- Only verbs with an object can become passive; intransitive verbs stay active.
- The object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive, and the old subject moves after by or is dropped.
- Continuous tenses add being, perfect tenses add been, and future forms add be after will.
- Future continuous and perfect continuous tenses are not normally used in the passive.
- With modals, the pattern is modal + be + past participle, or modal + have been + past participle.
- In passive questions, do, does and did disappear; who becomes by whom.
- Imperatives become passive with let + object + be + past participle, or with You are requested / advised / ordered to.
- The passive infinitive is to be + past participle; the passive gerund is being + past participle.
- Use the active voice for direct, lively writing; use the passive when the doer is unknown, obvious or unimportant, or when the writing must sound formal.
- News reports, science records and notices use the passive often.