Key facts

  • Passive voice normally requires a transitive active verb because the active object becomes the passive subject.
  • The passive core is the correct form of be plus the past participle of the main verb.
  • The passive auxiliary agrees with the new subject, not with the old active subject inside the by-phrase.
  • The by-phrase is used for the agent, but it may be omitted when the doer is unknown, obvious or unimportant.
  • Simple present passive uses am, is or are plus past participle; simple past passive uses was or were plus past participle.

Key Points at a Glance

  1. 1

    Passive voice normally requires a transitive active verb because the active object becomes the passive subject.

  2. 2

    The passive core is the correct form of be plus the past participle of the main verb.

  3. 3

    The passive auxiliary agrees with the new subject, not with the old active subject inside the by-phrase.

  4. 4

    The by-phrase is used for the agent, but it may be omitted when the doer is unknown, obvious or unimportant.

  5. 5

    Simple present passive uses am, is or are plus past participle; simple past passive uses was or were plus past participle.

  6. 6

    Perfect passives require been: has been written, had been checked and will have been declared.

  7. 7

    Standard continuous passives use being mainly in present continuous and past continuous forms.

  8. 8

    Modal passives follow modal plus be plus past participle: can be done, must be followed, should be avoided.

  9. 9

    Imperative passives commonly use Let plus object plus be plus past participle, or should be plus past participle for advice.

  10. 10

    Yes-no passive questions place the auxiliary before the passive subject, as in Was the letter written?

  11. 11

    Intransitive verbs such as happen, arrive, sleep and die do not form normal passive sentences in ordinary use.

  12. 12

    Double object verbs may allow two passive forms, such as I was given a book and A book was given to me.

  13. 13

    Pronoun case changes after conversion: I becomes me in a by-phrase, and me becomes I as passive subject.

  14. 14

    A correct transformation preserves tense, number, negation, modal force and meaning, not only word order.

What is the difference between active and passive voice?

Active voice makes the doer of an action the subject of the sentence, while passive voice makes the receiver of the action the subject and shifts the focus from who did it to what was done. Voice shows the relation between the subject, the verb and the action. In active voice, the subject is the doer of the action: The clerk typed the letter. In passive voice, the subject is the receiver of the action: The letter was typed by the clerk. The basic change is therefore not just word order; the focus of the sentence changes. Active voice usually sounds direct, short and natural because it starts with the doer. Passive voice is useful when the receiver is more important, when the doer is unknown, or when the doer is unnecessary: The file was approved yesterday. The exam normally tests this as conversion, correction or selection of the correct passive form. According to the Rajasthan Staff Selection Board's official LDC syllabus, General English accounts for 75 questions in the language paper.

A normal passive sentence needs a transitive verb, because there must be an object in the active sentence that can become the subject in the passive sentence. The active sentence The peon opened the gate has an object, the gate, so it can become The gate was opened by the peon. But The child slept has no object. There is no receiver of the action, so a natural passive is not possible. Many wrong options in voice questions are built from intransitive verbs such as sleep, come, go, arrive, happen, occur, die, rise and sit when they are used without an object. A candidate should first locate the object before trying to change the voice.

The agent is the doer in a passive sentence, usually introduced by by: The thief was caught by the police. The by-phrase is not always required. It is normally omitted when the agent is unknown, obvious, general, unimportant, or deliberately avoided: My wallet was stolen; English is spoken here; The decision was taken after discussion. In official and administrative writing, passive forms often appear because the action or record matters more than the person: Applications will be checked before interview. In an objective grammar question, however, do not delete the agent if the answer choices require exact meaning. Ramesh broke the glass should become The glass was broken by Ramesh, unless the question asks for a suitable passive in context.

Passive voice is also not natural when the active verb has a fixed expression, a reflexive meaning, or no real patient. Sentences such as He has a car, She resembles her mother, This book costs two hundred rupees and The room measures ten feet do not normally become passives in ordinary exam grammar, even though they contain nouns after the verb. The noun after such verbs is not always a transferable object in the same way as letter in He wrote a letter. Similarly, verbs like lack, fit, suit and become often resist normal passive conversion in common use. The safe exam method is to ask three questions: who does the action, what receives it, and does the new passive sound like standard English? If any answer fails, the sentence is probably not a normal passive conversion.