Passive Voice

PASSIVE VOICE

Passive voice is important for IELTS. Whenever you speak or write, or try to
understand reading passages, you need to have the ability to use and
understand a good range of grammar.

However, a way that the passive is specifically needed for IELTS is if you get
a process diagram in Academic IELTS Task 1. In this case you will use it
throughout your explanation of the process.

So first we'll take a look at how to use the passive voice generally, then we'll
see how it is used in a Task 1.
What are the Active and Passive?

When we use the active voice, the subject is doing the action of the verb:
When we use the passive voice, the person or thing receiving the action
becomes the subject:
Active Passive
The dog bit the boy The boy was bitten by the dog
What are the Passive Voice Rules?

To make a sentence passive, we do three things:
1. Move the object of the sentence, and make it the subject. The object thus
becomes the subject (often we exclude the object because it is not
important to the sentence).
2. Add in "by" before the new object (if you are including it in the new
sentence)
3. Add the verb "to be" to the front of the verb, and change the verb to the
past participle. You then have a passive voice verb. Remember to keep the
tense the same.
Active Passive
The boy (new subject) was bitten (new

The dog (subject) bit (verb) the verb form) by the dog (new object).
boy (object)
The boy (subject) was bitten (verb).
In this case the verb "bit" is in the past simple, so when it is made passive, the
verb "to be" must be the past simple - "was".
Passive Voice Examples
These are examples of how we form it with different tenses (without the object
in the passive):
Tense Active Passive

Present I eat the food The food is eaten
Present
I am eating the food The food is being eaten
Continuous
Present Perfect I have eaten the food The food has been eaten
Past I ate the food The food was eaten
Past Continuous I was eating the food The food was being eaten
Past Perfect I had eaten the food The food had been eaten
Future I will eat the food The food will be eaten
I will have eaten the The food will have been
Future Perfect
food eaten
I can eat the food The food can be eaten
Present Modal I should eat the food The food should be eaten
I may eat the food The food may be eaten
I could have eaten the The food could have been
food eaten
I should have eaten the The food should have been
Past Modals
food eaten
I may have eaten the The food may have been
food eaten
Gerunds and Infinitives

We can also use the passive voice for infinitive and gerund structures:
Tense Infinitive Gerund
Being + Past Participle

Simple to + be + Past Participle
Being taken care of was
She wanted to be taken care of
wonderful.
having been + Past Participle

Perfect to + have been + Past
Participle She celebrated having been
chosen
She was happy to have been
chosen
Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

However, you cannot use the passive with intransitive verbs.
Transitive verbs have to take an object. For example, you cannot say "He
discovered". This is a transitive verb so it needs an object: " He discovered a
cure".
So this can be made passive: "A cure was discovered".
Intransitive verbs are not followed by an object. For example, you can say "He
died". Or it could be followed by an adverb: "He died yesterday".
But we cannot say: "He was died" or "Yesterday was died he".
INVERSION FOR IELTS
It is common to invert sentence using negative, ‘restrictive’ words such as those in

the list below:
hardly ever Hardly ever had there been such a shortage of water.
never Never had the President had to make such a difficult

decision.
little Little did she know time was running out.
scarcely ever Scarcely ever have they had to wait for anything.
only by Only by learning to type will he improve in his job.
under no Under no circumstances is the prisoner to have visitors.

circumstances
only in this way Only in this way can we be sure to avoid repeating the
problem in the future.
on no account On no account is John to be given any money.

scarcely Scarcely had they left the building when the bomb went
off.
not only Not only had he broken the law but he was also
unrepentant.
seldom Seldom have I seen such wealth.
nowhere Nowhere else is there such an abundance of natural

resources.
not until Not until the following day did he realise he had been
tricked.

Passive Voice - Ielts and Inversion

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What are the Active and Passive?

What are the Passive Voice Rules?

The boy (new subject) was bitten (new

Tense Active Passive

Gerunds and Infinitives

Tense Infinitive Gerund

Being + Past Participle

having been + Past Participle

Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

So this can be made passive: "A cure was discovered".

INVERSION FOR IELTS

It is common to invert sentence using negative, ‘restrictive’ words such as those in

never Never had the President had to make such a difficult

little Little did she know time was running out.

only by Only by learning to type will he improve in his job.

under no Under no circumstances is the prisoner to have visitors.

on no account On no account is John to be given any money.

seldom Seldom have I seen such wealth.

nowhere Nowhere else is there such an abundance of natural

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