Active and Passive Voice

Active and Passive Voice

🟢 Lite — Quick Review (1h–1d)

Rapid summary for last-minute revision before your exam.

Active voice places the doer (agent) in the subject position: the subject performs the verb’s action (“The committee approved the syllabus”). Passive voice shifts the receiver of the action into the subject position, using a form of be + past participle (V3), with the original doer optionally tagged on with by (“The syllabus was approved by the committee”). The structural conversion formula is:

Active: Subject + Verb + Object → Passive: Object + be + V3 + by + Subject

Only transitive verbs (those taking a direct object) can be converted. MDCAT English (Section A, weight ≈ 3%) tests this through sentence-correction items (“Choose the passive form of…”) and error-spotting. Memorise the be-form that matches each tense (is/am/are for present, was/were for past, been for perfect, being for continuous).

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🟡 Standard — Regular Study (2d–2mo)

Standard content for students with a few days to months.

Core Definition

Voice expresses whether the grammatical subject acts (active) or is acted upon (passive). In The surgeon sutured the wound, the surgeon actively performs the action. In The wound was sutured by the surgeon, the wound becomes the subject and the action is received.

Construction Rules

1. The object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence.
2. The main verb shifts to its past participle (V3) form.
3. An auxiliary “be” is inserted, agreeing with the new subject in number and tense.
4. The original subject is introduced with by, but may be dropped when the agent is unknown, obvious, or irrelevant (e.g., “The bridge was built in 1902” — the builder is irrelevant).

Tense-by-Tense Conversion Table

Tense	Active Structure	Passive Structure
Simple Present	S + V1/V5 + O	S + is/am/are + V3
Simple Past	S + V2 + O	S + was/were + V3
Present Continuous	S + is/am/are + V4 + O	S + is/am/are + being + V3
Past Continuous	S + was/were + V4 + O	S + was/were + being + V3
Present Perfect	S + has/have + V3 + O	S + has/have + been + V3
Past Perfect	S + had + V3 + O	S + had + been + V3
Future	S + will/shall + V1 + O	S + will/shall + be + V3
Modal	S + Modal + V1 + O	S + Modal + be + V3

Question and Imperative Patterns

• Passive questions keep the question word and invert the auxiliary: Did he write the report? → Was the report written by him?
• Passive imperatives use Let: Open the window → Let the window be opened.

Common MDCAT Traps

• Confusing V3 (past participle: written) with V2 (simple past: wrote) — only V3 is used in passive constructions.
• Forgetting to change the be-form when the subject switches from singular to plural.
• Trying to passivise intransitive verbs (The baby slept cannot become *The sleep was slept by the baby).

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🔴 Extended — Deep Study (3mo+)

Comprehensive coverage for students on a longer study timeline.

Edge Cases and Restrictions

Stative verbs (verbs describing states rather than actions, such as resemble, lack, contain, belong, suit) and intransitive verbs (arrive, happen, occur, die) cannot be converted into the passive voice because they have no direct object to promote. A sentence like “The accident happened near the signal” has no valid passive equivalent.

When an active sentence carries two objects — a direct object and an indirect object — the passive voice allows two valid transformations, each promoting a different object to subject position. For example, She taught me English can become either I was taught English by her or English was taught to me by her. Both are grammatically correct; the choice depends on which information the writer wants to foreground.

Reporting verbs in passive constructions (e.g., It is said that…, He is believed to have…) frequently appear in MDCAT sentence-reformulation questions. Recognising the pattern Subject + is/are + V3 + to-infinitive (e.g., The Minister is reported to have resigned) is essential for the verb-form sub-section.

Connections to Adjacent Topics

Voice transformation integrates closely with tense consistency, subject-verb agreement (the be auxiliary must match the new subject), and narration changes (direct-to-indirect speech often requires voice shift — He said, “I wrote it” → He said it had been written by him).

Worked Solution

Convert “The students have submitted the assignments” into passive voice. Step 1 — Identify object: the assignments. Step 2 — Place object at subject position: The assignments… Step 3 — Match be to tense and number (present perfect, plural subject → have been). Step 4 — Add V3 of submit (submitted). Step 5 — Optional agent with by. Answer: The assignments have been submitted by the students.

Two Practice Prompts

1. Transform: “The committee will announce the results tomorrow.” (Write the passive form.)
2. Identify the error: “The new policy is being agreed by most members.” (Should being agreed be agreed to? Why?)

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