Active & Passive Voice
Active and Passive Voice sentences are very important to pass the competitive exams of any organizations. Such types of questions usually come because mostly students do not learn about such questions.
This page helps to learn about the Active & Passive Voice and its rules in most comprehensive way. If you are applying for any vacancy of Pak Army, Pak Navy and PAF then you must learn it deeply. Its related questions come in the Officers initial tests of Pak Forces in general and Airman tests, Sailor Tests in particular.
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1. | Nouns | 5. | Preposition | ||
2. | Pronouns | 6. | Conjunction | ||
3. | Verb | 7. | Adjectives | ||
4. | Adverb | 8. | Interjection |
ACTIVE VOICE VS PASSIVE VOICE
ACTIVE VOICE
It illustrates a sentence where the subject performs the action that stated by the verb.
Form: SUBJECT + VERB + OBJECT.
- I am drinking tea.
- He played cricket.
- They will help you.
PASSIVE VOICE
In contrast, passive voice is describe a sentence in which the subject receives an action.
Form: OBJECT +HELPING VERB + PAST PARTICIPLE+BY+SUBJECT.
- Tea is being drunk by me.
- Cricket was played by him.
- You will be helped by them.
BASIC RULES FOR CHANGING ACTIVEINTO PASSIVE
- Subject will be converted into object.
- Object will be changed into subject.
- 3rd form of verb used in passive voice.
- Pronouns get changed when they change their positions in the following way –
I ↔ Me
We ↔ Us
You ↔ You
He ↔ Him
She ↔ Her
It ↔ It
They ↔ Them
- The word of (By) is added when active voice is changed into passive voice.
- Interrogative/Negative Sentences will remain same while changing from active voice to passive voice.
- Cases where no passive form exists
Present perfect Continuous: She has been writing a letter.
Past perfect Continuous: He had been cleaning the house.
Future Continuous: I will be filing all the documents tomorrow.
Future Perfect Continuous: I will have been serving tea for customers at this hotel for twenty years by then.
- The chart below includes all tenses that are used in passive voice.
| Active VOICE | Passive SENTENCES |
Present Simple | Read | is
read |
Present Continuous | is
reading | is
being read |
Past Simple | Read | was
read |
Past Continuous | was
reading | was
being read |
Future Simple | will
read | will
be read |
Present Perfect | has
read | has
been read |
Past Perfect | had
read | had
been read |
Future Perfect | will
have read | will
have been read |
Conditional Present | would
read | would
be read |
Conditional Past | would
have read | would
have been read |
Present Infinitive | to
read | to
be read |
- If the given sentence in the active voice is in the imperative form, to get the passive voice use ‘Let’.
Formation of Passive Voice = Let + Object + be + Past Participle
Examples:
- Active: Help me.
- Passive: Let me be helped.
- Active: Open the door.
- Passive: Let the door be opened.
- Helping verbs like am, is, are, was, were, will, have, should, could, will
If the question begins with a Helping verb the Passive voice must also begin with a suitable helping verb.
- Act: Are you writing a letter?
- Passive: Is a letter being written by you?
- Act: Will you write a letter?
- Passive: Will a letter be written by you?
- What, When, Who, Why, How
If the question begins with ‘Wh’ or How’ form (what, when, how, etc.) the Passive Voice must begin with the same. Only ‘who’ gets replaced by ‘By whom’.
- Active: Why did you break the box?
- Passive: Why was the box broken by you?
- Active: Who broke the window?
- Passive: By whom was the window broken?
- Gerund, Infinitive
When used in passive form, gerund and Infinitive are formed differently.
Infinitive: passive is formed as ‘to be + past participle’
- Act: I want to shoot the tiger.
- Passive: I want the tiger to be shot.
Gerund: passive is formed as ‘being + past participle’
- Act: I remember my father taking me to the theatre.
- Passive: I remember being taken to the theatre by my father.
Direct and Indirect Object
If a sentence contains two objects namely Indirect Object and Direct Object in the Active Voice, two forms of Passive Voice can be formed.
- Act: She brought me a cup of coffee.
- Passive: (I) I was brought a cup of coffee by her.
- Passive: (II) A cup of coffee was brought to me by her.
- Cases where ‘by’ is not used
With: use with in place of ‘by’ to talk about an instrument used by the agent/subject.
- Act: Somebody hit the dog with a stick.
- Passive: (I) The dog was hit by with a stick.
- Passive: (II) The dog was hit by a boy.
- Changing an Imperative Sentence into the Passive
Sentences which express request, order, advice, suggestion, prohibition etc., are called imperative sentences.
The imperative sentence in the passive voice has the following structure:
Let + object + be + past participle verb
When the active voice begins with do not, the passive voice has the following structure:
Let not + object + be + past participle verb
In some sentences it is possible to put not after the object or be.
Examples are given below:
- Active: Bring it home.
- Passive: Let it be brought home.
- Act: Do it at once.
- Passive: Let it be done at once.
- Act: Do not beat the dog.
- Passive: Let the dog not be beaten.
- Act: Let me do it.
- Passive: Let it be done by me. OR Let me be allowed to do it.
You can begin the sentence with you if you want to put emphasis on the person addressed to.
Examples are given below:
- Active: Please help me.
- Passive: Let me be helped.
- Passive: You are requested to help me.
- Act: Don’t touch it.
- Passive: Let it not be touched.
- Act: You are warned not to touch it.
The passive form has to begin with you, when the object of the verb in the active voice is not given.
- Act: Work hard. (No object)
- Passive: You are advised to work hard.
- Act: Get out. (No object)
- Passive: You are ordered to get out.
More examples are given below:
- Active: Please lend me some money.
- Passive: You are requested to lend me some money.
- Active: Kindly do this work.
- Passive: You are requested to do this work.
- Active: Get me a glass of water.
- Passive: You are ordered to get me a glass of water.
- Active: Let us go for a walk.
- Passive: It is suggested that we should go out for a walk.
Note that suggest is followed by a -that clause and not an infinitive.
- Sentences with modals
- Active: You ought to respect your parents.
- Passive: Your parents ought to be respected by you.
- Active: You should learn your lessons.
- Passive: Your lessons should be learned by you.
In sentences where God is invoked the passive voice will be as follows:
- Active: May God bless you!
- Passive: May you be blessed by God!
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