Passive Voice Sentences – Exercises
This grammar exercise helps you to learn how to write passive voice sentences.
Instructions: Transform the active voice sentences below into the passive form. The first few words of the passive sentence are provided to guide you.
You may want to review the examples below the exercises first. The answers are given after the last question.
1 (Active): Then the teacher explained the instructions provided on the handout.
(Passive): Then the instructions . . .
2 (Active): During the explanation of the instructions, the teacher permitted the students to ask questions.
(Passive): During the explanation of the instructions, the students . . .
3 (Active): When the students had finished asking questions, the teacher put them into groups in order to carry out the task.
(Passive): When the students had finished asking questions, they . . .
4 (Active): During this time, the teacher observed the students’ interactions.
(Passive): During this time, the students’ interactions . . .
5 (Active): Finally, the teacher provided feedback to the students.
(Passive): Finally, the students . . .
Passive Voice Sentences – Answers
1 (Passive): Then the instructions provided on the handout were explained (by the teacher).
2 (Passive): During the explanation of the instructions, the students were permitted to ask questions (by the teacher).
3 (Passive): When the students had finished asking questions, they were put into groups (by the teacher) in order to carry out the task.
4 (Passive): During this time, the students’ interactions were observed (by the teacher).
5 (Passive): Finally, the students were provided feedback (by the teacher).
Passive Voice on the IELTS Writing Test
You will have to write two writing tasks as part of the IELTS exam.
The first writing task involves having to interpret data that is represented in a chart, graph or table.
For task 1, you will need to write about the most significant aspects of the data.
The use of passive voice is very common in the data analysis writing task.
However, you shouldn’t write all of your sentences in the passive voice.
You should write some sentences in the simple past active voice as well.
This will create a variety of high-level sentence constructions in your task 1 essay.
Passive Voice Sentences – Examples
Here are some examples of passive voice sentences:
Active: First, the teacher gave the students a sheet of paper containing written instructions.
Passive: First, the students were given a sheet of paper containing written instructions (by the teacher).
Note that the phrase containing the agent (“by the teacher”) is not really necessary in this situation because we know from common sense that it is the teacher’s job to do this task.
More Exercises with Passive Voice Sentences
Active and passive voice comparison
More Grammar Exercises
