Present and past simple passive: ‘be’ + past participle

Present and past simple passive: ‘be’ + past participle

Exercise 3

Transform the following active sentences into passive sentences without by.

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1Somebody found him in the South of Spain ⇒ He in the South of Spain.

2Did anyone lock the door last night? ⇒ last night?

3They paint the house every five years. ⇒ every five years.

4They made the robot with three sensors.  ⇒ with three sensors.

5Someone found my keys in the street. ⇒ in the street.

6Someone injured two police officers during the incident. ⇒ during the incident.

7They postponed the match because of the rain. ⇒ because of the rain.

8They teach students to show respect. ⇒ to show respect.

9The major operators sell the mobile phones. ⇒ by the major operators.

10They learn something new every day. ⇒ every day.

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Present and past simple passive: Grammar chart

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Active sentences vs passive sentences

When A does B, we have two possible ways of talking about it: active or passive. In active sentences, A is the subject (before the verb). In passive sentences, B is the subject. Check the following examples:

Present simple

Past simple

As you can see, the object of an active sentence is the subject of a passive sentence. In an active sentence, the subject is the ‘doer’ of the action, and the object is the ‘receiver’ of the action. In a passive sentence, the subject is the receiver of the action, NOT the doer. Compare:

• Somebody broke the window.
• The window was broken (by someone).

In the first sentence, ‘somebody’ is the doer of the breaking, and in the second sentence, ‘the window’ is the receiver of the breaking.

When do we use the passive?

The passive is more formal than the active, and it is more common in written language. We often use the passive when we don’t know, when it is obvious, or when we don’t want to say who or what is responsible for the action.

• A bank was robbed yesterday. (We don’t know who robbed the bank.)
• The robber was arrested last night. (It’s obvious that the police arrested the robber.)
• I was told that you insulted my brother. (I don’t want to say who told me.)
• Jurassic Park was filmed by Spielberg in 1993. (I’m talking about Jurassic Park and not about Spielberg.)

Passive voice + by

We can use by to say who or what is responsible for the action.

• The painting was bought by a very rich American.
• Penicillin was invented by Alexander Fleming. 

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