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About Passive Voice exercises
The passive voice shifts focus from the agent (the doer) to the action or the recipient. It is formed with the verb be in the appropriate tense plus the past participle (e.g. The report was written by Sarah). The passive is common in academic, journalistic, and formal writing, wherever the agent is unknown, unimportant, or deliberately withheld.
Common problems include choosing when passive is appropriate versus active, forming the passive correctly in complex tenses (present perfect passive, future passive), and handling passive with verbs that take two objects (give, send, offer). These exercises span B1–C1 level and cover all major tenses in affirmative, negative, and question forms.
Use the passive for a reason. It suits sentences where the agent is unknown, obvious or unimportant: The window was broken. Add by only when the agent gives useful information: The report was written by Sarah. Only transitive verbs can be passive, so verbs such as arrive and happen have no passive form. To build the passive, find the tense of the active verb, put be in that tense and add the past participle. Check the tense of be before you check the participle.
- Simple present and past passive
- Present perfect and past perfect passive
- Future passive (will be done)
- Passive with modal verbs (should be completed)
- Passive with reporting verbs (It is believed that...)
- Double-object passives (She was given a prize)