Active and Passive Voice

🟢 Lite — Quick Review (1h–1d)

Rapid summary for last-minute revision before your exam.

Active and Passive Voice — Quick Facts

Active Voice: The subject performs the action. → “The dog bit the man.” Passive Voice: The subject receives the action. → “The man was bitten by the dog.”

When to Use Passive Voice:

• When the agent/doer is unknown: “My car was stolen last night.”
• When the receiver is more important: “The new stadium was opened by the President.”
• In scientific or technical writing: “The solution was heated to 100°C.”
• For diplomatic or formal expression: “It is believed that…”

Passive Voice Formation: subject + be verb (in correct tense) + past participle (+ by + agent)

Tense	Active Example	Passive Example
Simple Present	The teacher teaches English.	English is taught by the teacher.
Simple Past	The teacher taught English.	English was taught by the teacher.
Present Continuous	The teacher is teaching English.	English is being taught by the teacher.
Past Continuous	The teacher was teaching English.	English was being taught by the teacher.
Present Perfect	The teacher has taught English.	English has been taught by the teacher.
Future (will)	The teacher will teach English.	English will be taught by the teacher.
Future (going to)	The teacher is going to teach English.	English is going to be taught by the teacher.
Modal verbs	The teacher can teach English.	English can be taught by the teacher.

⚡ WAEC Exam Tip: When converting passive to active, identify the “by” phrase agent, make it the subject, and put the original subject into the “by” phrase or omit it. Watch out for tense consistency — WAEC examiners penalise tense errors in voice transformation questions.

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🟡 Standard — Regular Study (2d–2mo)

Standard content for students with a few days to months.

Active and Passive Voice — Study Guide

Why Passive Voice Matters in English:

The choice between active and passive voice affects emphasis and clarity. Passive voice is not “wrong” — it is a stylistic tool. However, overuse of the passive makes writing vague and indirect. Strong writers choose deliberately.

Identifying the Passive in Any Tense:

The hallmark of the passive voice is: be verb + past participle

Even when the be verb is combined with other auxiliaries, you can spot it:

• “has been being painted” (present perfect continuous passive) — rarely used in standard English
• “will have been completed” (future perfect passive) — more common

Subject-Verb-Object Recasting:

1. The object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive.
2. The active subject becomes the object of “by” in the passive (or is omitted).
3. The main verb changes to: be + past participle.
4. The tense of “be” matches the original active verb tense.

Examples in All Tenses:

Simple Present Passive: Active: “They sell books.” Passive: “Books are sold (by them).”

Present Perfect Passive: Active: “Someone has stolen my bicycle.” Passive: “My bicycle has been stolen (by someone).”

Past Perfect Passive: Active: “The chef had prepared the meal before the guests arrived.” Passive: “The meal had been prepared by the chef before the guests arrived.”

Future Perfect Passive: Active: “By 2028, scientists will have discovered a cure.” Passive: “By 2028, a cure will have been discovered (by scientists).”

Indirect Object with Passive: When a verb has two objects (direct and indirect), either can become the passive subject:

• Active: “She gave the student a book.”
• Passive 1: “The student was given a book (by her).”
• Passive 2: “A book was given to the student (by her).”

⚡ Common Mistakes to Avoid:

• Forgetting to change the verb tense in the “be” auxiliary — e.g., writing “English is taught by the teacher” instead of “English was taught by the teacher” when the original is past tense.
• Inverting the subject and object without changing the verb form — passive requires be + past participle.
• Using past simple form without “be”: “English taught by the teacher” is not passive.
• Omitting the past participle (using only “be”) — “English is taught by the teacher” ✓; “English is teaching” ✗

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🔴 Extended — Deep Study (3mo+)

Comprehensive coverage for students on a longer study timeline.

Active and Passive Voice — Comprehensive Notes

Advanced Voice Transformation and Usage

Impersonal Passive Constructions: In formal and scientific English, certain verbs form quasi-passive constructions with the pronoun “it”:

• “It is said that…” / “It is believed that…”
• “It is reported that…” / “It is understood that…”
• “It must be admitted that…”

These are sometimes called “passival” constructions — they have passive meaning without formal passive structure. In transformation questions, you can often convert these to formal passive:

• “People say that he is honest.” → “It is said that he is honest.” / “He is said to be honest.”

Causative “Have” (Not True Passive — But Related): “Have something done” means you arrange for someone else to do something for you:

• “I had my car repaired.” (someone else repaired it, not me)
• “She is having her house painted.” (workers are painting it)

This is important in WAEC questions because it tests your understanding of who performs the action vs. who arranges it.

Stative Verbs vs. Dynamic Verbs — Beware: Some verbs have passive-like forms that are actually stative (describing a state, not an action). These do not typically appear in passive transformations:

• “to be worth” — “The book is worth reading.” (not “is being worth read”)
• “to differ” — “This differs from that.” (no passive form)
• “to have” (possession) — “She has a car.” (not “A car is had by her”)
• “to resemble” — “He resembles his father.” (no passive)

Advanced Transformation Patterns:

From Active with Two Objects to Passive: With verbs like give, tell, offer, show, promise, the indirect object usually becomes the passive subject:

Active: “The manager gave the staff a warning.” Passive: “The staff were given a warning (by the manager).” (preferred) Passive alt: “A warning was given to the staff (by the manager).” (acceptable but less natural)

With Verbs of Manufacturing and Construction: Active: “They are building a new bridge.” Passive: “A new bridge is being built.” Note: do NOT add “by them” unless the agent is specifically mentioned in the original.

Question to Passive:

• Active: “Did the teacher mark the scripts?”
• Passive: “Were the scripts marked (by the teacher)?”

Negative to Passive:

• Active: “They do not permit smoking here.”
• Passive: “Smoking is not permitted here.”

Emphasis and Style: Active voice is generally preferred in modern English because it is clearer and more direct. Passive voice is appropriate when:

• The agent is irrelevant or unknown
• You want to sound diplomatic (“Mistakes were made” — softer than “You made mistakes”)
• You want to foreground the patient/receiver
• You are following a convention (scientific reports, lab instructions)

WAEC Past Question Patterns:

1. Direct conversion (most common): “Change the following to passive voice.”
2. Indirect conversion: “Rewrite the following sentence beginning with: ‘It is believed that…’”
3. Multiple-choice identification: “Which of the following sentences is in the passive voice?”
4. Gap-fill: “The new library ___ (build) last year.” — requires correct passive form in past simple: “was built.”
5. Error correction: Identifying wrong passive constructions in a sentence.

⚡ WAEC-Specific Exam Tips:

1. In active-to-passive questions, always check the tense of the active verb first before forming the passive.
2. For present perfect passive: “has/have + been + past participle” — the “been” is easy to forget. Practise writing it out in full.
3. When the active verb has no agent (e.g., “They say that…”), use the impersonal passive: “It is said that…”
4. In multiple-choice questions, eliminate options that change the tense of the verb — the passive must match the original tense.
5. For “write in the passive” instructions, include “by + agent” only if the original sentence specifies who performed the action.
6. In continuous tenses with passive, remember “being”: “The house is being painted” — not “The house is painting.”
7. After writing your conversion, read it aloud: if it sounds unnatural, recheck the verb form.
8. Watch for “modal + be” constructions: “must be done,” “should be submitted,” “ought to be remembered” — the pattern is always modal + be + past participle.

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