The Passive Voice.

The passive is used far more in English than, for example, in French. French speakers may be tempted to use "One ..." but this strcture, much used in French where the passive is used in English is mostly avoided..

Interestingly one reason for this is that the "One..." structure is used a lot by the Royal Family, especially the Queen - maybe to avoid the royal singular"We" - A result is that it has been used a lot to parody her speech.

Indeed in her 1992 "Annus Horribilis" speech, when she used the latin expression to describe what had been what she thought at the time was a bad year - she may have updated her oinion since - was brilliantly translated by the Sun newspaper as "One's bum year".

Note that the passive is used when the agent is known or unimportant and is usually best left out.

"The killer shot the victim in the head." is better expressed with "The victim was shot in the head." Nothing is gained by adding "by the killer." It is obvious and redundant and should be removed.

There is, as always, an exception: We do use the passive when referring to works of art, creation and discovery.

Consequently, "Hamlet was written by Shakespeare" is quite normal. "The building was designed by Wren." too, as is, "America was discovered by Columbus." etc.

Doing the activity:

In this activity you should complete the sentence on the right by typing in the white window.

On the left is a sentence in the actie form. It might be, for example "The police arrested Smith at 9p.m."

The right hand side might have, "Smith _________________ at 9p.m." (the line being a white window).

Put your cursor on the window and type "was arrested" - the passive form of the verb used in the original sentence on the left.

Do the same for the other sentences.

At any time you can click on "Check" at the bottom of the page. Correct ansers will be integrated in the text, wrong answers left in a white window for correction. If you have no idea you can click on "Hint", also at the bottom, to get the next letter. You will be given your score to date each time you click on "Check".

Have fun.