Active-Passive voice Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The passive form is All the clothes have been folded by Sandra.

The active sentence is in the present perfect tense (has folded). Its passive is has/have been + past participle. The new subject, all the clothes, is plural, so it takes have been: 'All the clothes have been folded by Sandra.'

'Were folded' and 'was folded' change the tense to the simple past. 'Has been folded' keeps the tense but makes the singular verb agree wrongly with the plural subject clothes, and 'was folded' has the same agreement error.

Answer: D

The passive voice is By whom were you taught English ?

In the active question Who taught you English?, who is the subject and you the object. In the passive, the object you becomes the subject, the verb becomes were taught (past tense of be + past participle), and the doer who becomes by whom, with the auxiliary before the subject because it is a question.

'By who' uses the subject form after a preposition and lacks question word order. 'Who taught English to you?' is still active, and 'English, who taught you?' is not a passive at all.

Answer: B

The active voice is One should keep one's promises.

Promises should be kept is a passive sentence with no doer named. To make it active, an indefinite subject is supplied, here one, and the subject of the passive, promises, becomes the object: One should keep one's promises. The modal should is kept.

'Promises are to be kept' is still passive, and 'One's promises should be kept by one' is passive too, with an awkward agent added. 'Promises can not be kept' changes the meaning from obligation to impossibility.

Answer: B

The correct passive is The wall is being built by the mason.

The active sentence is in the present continuous (is building). Its passive keeps the continuous aspect: the object becomes the subject, and the verb becomes is being plus the past participle.

\[ \text{is building} \rightarrow \text{is being built} \]

The wall is built by the mason is the passive of the simple present (builds) and loses the sense of work in progress. The mason builds the wall is still active, and the last option is not a grammatical sentence.

Answer: D

The correct passive is The poor must not be looked down on by us.

The passive of a modal sentence is formed with modal + be + past participle: 'must not look down on' becomes 'must not be looked down on'. Look down on is a phrasal-prepositional verb, so the whole group 'down on' stays with the verb in the passive.

The options without be ('must not looked') are ungrammatical, and 'looked on' drops down, which changes the meaning from 'despise' to 'watch'.

Answer: B

The sentence not in the passive voice is Being a student, you must work hard.

Its main clause, 'you must work hard', has the subject doing the action with the active verb work; 'Being a student' is only a participial phrase meaning 'since you are a student', not a passive construction.

The others are all passive, with a form of be + past participle: 'has to be taken', 'was being chased' and 'has been set aside by the court'.

Answer: A

The correct active sentence is People are saying that the Government is spending too little money on roads.

The passive 'It is being said' is present continuous, so the active form keeps the present continuous with a general subject: 'People are saying'. The reported clause 'too little money is being spent by the Government' is also present continuous passive; its agent, the Government, becomes the subject: 'the Government is spending too little money'.

'People were saying ... has been spent' changes both tenses and leaves the clause passive. 'Too little money spent by Government on roading' is ungrammatical, and 'Government have spend' misuses the verb form.

Answer: B

The active voice is They have watched the movie.

The given sentence is in the present perfect passive: has been watched. In the active voice the doer, them, becomes the subject they, and the tense stays present perfect: have watched.

They had watched is past perfect, They watched is simple past and They watch is simple present. Each changes the tense, which a voice change must not do.

Answer: A

The active form is They refused him admittance.

'He was refused admittance' is in the simple past passive (was + past participle). The active voice keeps the same tense, so the verb becomes the simple past 'refused'. The unstated agent becomes a general subject 'They', and the passive subject 'He' becomes the object 'him'.

'had refused' is the past perfect, 'have refused' the present perfect and 'will have refused' the future perfect. Each changes the tense, which a voice change must not do.

Answer: D

The active form is People said that he was angry with her.

"It was said that..." is the passive of 'say' in the past tense with no agent named. In the active voice a general subject such as 'People' is supplied and the tense of the reporting verb stays past: 'People said'. The reported clause 'he was angry with her' is unchanged.

'People say' changes the tense to the present. 'People said that he is angry' changes the reported clause. 'He is said to be angry with her' is still passive, and in the present tense.