PASSIVE

• All schools teach math. (active)

• Math is taught in all schools. (passive)

• Somebody built this house in 1935. (active)

• This house was built in 1935. (passive)

TENSE S BE P.P.

Present Simple

All letters are typed.

Present Continuous

The house

is being painted.

Past SimpleThe school

was built in 1978.

Past Continuous

The grass was being cut.

Present Perfect

The car has been repaired.

Past Perfect The table had been reserved.

Modal verbs Doors must be lockedat the end of the day.

We use passive:

• To talk about processes:E.g. Flour is made from cereal grains such as wheat and rye. It is used to make bread and cakes.

• In formal writing to sound impersonal:E.g. (from a newspaper report) The country has been affected by flooding; hundreds of people have been evacuated.

• Usually we do not mention the agent (the person/thing that did the action) in a passive sentence because it is not important for the meaning of the sentence:E.g. The house was built in 1888. – we don’t say ‘by some builders’

• We can mention the agent in a passive sentence with by + noun when the sentence would not make sense without it:E.g. Hamlet was written by Shakespeare.