The passive
In a passive, something is done to the subject: The building was bought means somebody bought the
building. Miss that while reading, and a statement that swaps who acts goes through as true. Tasks
on form ask for something else: the right form of be and the third form of the verb after it.
The first noun is not always the doer
Two steps. Click the sentence in the text that your answer rests on, then mark the statement true or false.
Exam levelAs hard as the real exam. A miss here shows a gap in what you know.From 1904 until 2011 the lighthouse at Kaltbach warned ships away from the rocks. It went dark when the shipping lane was moved two kilometres north. Most of the equipment was sold at auction, but the lamp itself stayed. The building was bought by a retired teacher, Anna Ferl, who turned the top three floors into a hotel. Guests may climb the tower only in daylight, because the stairs have no railing. "We lost one guest for an hour last winter," Ferl admitted. The ground-floor room is still full of the old logbooks, and nobody has read them. Since 2019 the lamp has been switched on once a year by a grandson of the last keeper, and half the village comes to watch. A siren still warns ships when fog closes the bay. The old furniture was given away, not sold at auction. A retired teacher from the next village had offered to buy it first. The tower was painted white in 1970, and nobody has repainted it since.
Statement
A retired teacher sold the building.
That difference is the whole of the passive. In The building was bought by a retired teacher the
subject stands first, but it undergoes the action instead of performing it. The performer is
introduced by by and sits at the end. Reading left to right on autopilot, you take the first noun
for the doer, and the statement goes through as true.
The rule and the table
A passive is built from two parts: some form of be plus the third form of the verb. The
third form, that is the participle, is taken, bought, written; grammars call it the past
participle.
Nothing on the participle itself announces it. For every regular verb the second and third forms
are the same word, so repaired in The bridge was repaired and repaired in They repaired the bridge are spelt identically. In a full passive clause the marker is the be in front, and be is
also the plainest linking verb in the language: The window was broken and The window was old
are built to one pattern. To tell them apart, add by someone at the end. The window was broken by someone still works, so was broken can stand for an action, and that is a passive. The window was old by someone makes no sense: old only describes the window, and no action happens.
The passive is the choice when the doer is unknown, unimportant or obvious, and the story is about
the thing. The bridge was repaired last summer is about the bridge; who repaired it is left out
because it does not matter to the story.
The tense sits in be, and the participle never moves. Take take and watch the auxiliary, that is be, do
all the travelling while taken stays exactly as it is.
| Present | Past | |
|---|---|---|
| Simple | is taken | |
| Continuous | was being taken | |
| Perfect | has been taken |
There is no new system of tenses to learn. Every tense you know from the active has a passive twin, and the twin is assembled the same way every time.
The three verb forms: where the participle comes from and what else demands itThe next statement is about the same lighthouse text, but the trap sits in a different sentence.
Two steps. Click the sentence in the text that your answer rests on, then mark the statement true or false.
Above exam levelHarder than the exam on purpose. A miss here is not a gap in what you know.From 1904 until 2011 the lighthouse at Kaltbach warned ships away from the rocks. It went dark when the shipping lane was moved two kilometres north. Most of the equipment was sold at auction, but the lamp itself stayed. The building was bought by a retired teacher, Anna Ferl, who turned the top three floors into a hotel. Guests may climb the tower only in daylight, because the stairs have no railing. "We lost one guest for an hour last winter," Ferl admitted. The ground-floor room is still full of the old logbooks, and nobody has read them. Since 2019 the lamp has been switched on once a year by a grandson of the last keeper, and half the village comes to watch. A siren still warns ships when fog closes the bay. The old furniture was given away, not sold at auction. A retired teacher from the next village had offered to buy it first. The tower was painted white in 1970, and nobody has repainted it since.
Statement
The village switches the lamp on once a year.
Two faces of one rule: by names the performer, however far from the verb it stands, and a noun that
only stands near the passive is not the performer. Where a passive has no by at all, the sentence
names nobody: look elsewhere in the text before you assume anyone, and do not invent him.
The same passive in three other tasks
Editing. Most lines carry one extra word and some lines are clean. When been looks like the
extra word, the check takes two steps. been always belongs to a form of have, which may stand a word or
two away: has never been, Has the bridge been…? First step: find that have. If there is none,
as in was been repaired, been is the extra word. Second step: if there is one, ask whether the
subject undergoes the action. been + third form is a passive, so The workers have been earned less
would say that somebody earned the workers. They did the earning, and been is the extra word:
have earned.
Click the word that does not belong. If the line is correct as it stands, choose “no extra word”.
Exam levelAs hard as the real exam. A miss here shows a gap in what you know.- 00
- 01
- 02
- 03
- 04
Open cloze. Exactly one word goes in each gap, and there are no hints.
Text with missing sentence parts. In this reading task the gaps of a text are filled from a list of sentence fragments (A–K), two of which are spares. Below are one gap and three fragments from such a list.
For years the logbooks lay in a box. Last winter they ___ by a historian from the village, who found the name of every ship in them.
Above exam levelHarder than the exam on purpose. A miss here is not a gap in what you know.Three tasks, one and the same question: is the form of be right, and does a participle follow it.
Where it fools you when reading
Reading, you take the first noun for the doer, and a was on its own does not tell you whether a
passive follows or a plain description does. The statement below is built from a sentence of the
text, with its verb put into the passive. Click the word the text will not support.
Click the one word of the statement that the passage contradicts.
Above exam levelHarder than the exam on purpose. A miss here is not a gap in what you know.One word. Nothing marked yet.
From 1904 until 2011 the lighthouse at Kaltbach warned ships away from the rocks.
Statement
The check takes a second: find the subject of the sentence and ask whether it acts or is acted on.
If by follows the verb, you already have your answer.
After a modal, and have something done
After a modal the passive keeps its two parts, and be stays in its base form: must be repaired,
can be seen, and for the past should have been sent. A related shape is not a passive at all:
have something done has no be, only have, the thing and the third form, and it says that
somebody else does the job for you: We had the roof repaired means a builder repaired it, not us.
What to take with you
| Built from | any form of be + the third form of the verb |
| Where the tense sits | in be, never in the participle |
| Who acts | whoever by introduces; often nobody at all |
| Reading rule | the subject undergoes, by names the performer |
| Always wrong | the second form after be (was took); be dropped from a full clause |
| Extra in editing | been with no have for it, been in an active perfect (have been earned → have earned) |
| After a modal | be in the base form: must be repaired, can be seen |
have + thing + third form | not a passive: somebody else does it, had the roof repaired |
The tasks where the passive from this article turns up, and the tenses it takes its form of be from:
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