Success Homeschool

Year 10 English · Active and passive voice

Name: ______________________

Date: ____________

1. Which sentence is in the passive voice?
- ☐ (a) The chef cooked the meal.
- ☐ (b) The meal was cooked by the chef.
- ☐ (c) The chef is cooking.
- ☐ (d) The chef was tired.
2. Which sentence is in the active voice?
- ☐ (a) The window was broken.
- ☐ (b) The letters were delivered at noon.
- ☐ (c) Maya painted the fence.
- ☐ (d) The prize has been awarded.
3. Rewrite in the active voice: 'The cake was eaten by the twins.'
4. Who is the agent (the doer) in this sentence? 'The trophy was won by the visiting team.'
5. A politician says, 'Mistakes were made.' What is the main effect of this wording?
- ☐ (a) It clearly names who made the mistakes.
- ☐ (b) It avoids saying who made the mistakes.
- ☐ (c) It makes the sentence more emotional.
- ☐ (d) It shows the mistakes happened in the future.
6. Why might a science report say 'The solution was heated for five minutes' rather than 'I heated the solution for five minutes'?
- ☐ (a) Because the person is trying to hide a crime
- ☐ (b) Because the focus is on the method, not on who carried it out
- ☐ (c) Because the active voice is grammatically wrong
- ☐ (d) Because it makes the report shorter
7. 'The rules have been changed.' Is this sentence active or passive? (one word)
8. Which sentence is NOT in the passive voice, even though it contains 'was'?
- ☐ (a) The boy was running to school.
- ☐ (b) The house was built in 1990.
- ☐ (c) The emails were deleted.
- ☐ (d) The song was written by her brother.

Answer sheet

1. The meal was cooked by the chef. — 'Was cooked' is a form of 'to be' plus a past participle, and the receiver (the meal) is the subject.
2. Maya painted the fence. — Maya, the subject, performs the action of painting.
3. The twins ate the cake. — The agent ('the twins') becomes the subject and 'was eaten' becomes 'ate'.
4. the visiting team — The 'by…' phrase names the agent: the visiting team did the winning.
5. It avoids saying who made the mistakes. — This agentless passive removes the doer, so no one is named as responsible.
6. Because the focus is on the method, not on who carried it out — In scientific writing the passive keeps attention on the process, which anyone could repeat.
7. passive — 'Have been changed' is a form of 'to be' plus a past participle, and no agent is named.
8. The boy was running to school. — 'Was running' is active: the boy is doing the running. The other sentences use 'to be' plus a past participle (built, deleted, written).