The passive (2

‘WHO / WHAT... BY?’ QUESTIONS

• In passive questions starting with who / what the focus is on the agent of the action. This type of question is typically completed by the preposition by, which often closes the sentence.

ACTIVE QUESTIONS

Who makes these beautiful handbags? Who painted ‘The Last Supper’? Who will write the speech for the bridegroom? What hit the roof during the storm?

PASSIVE QUESTIONS

Who are these beautiful handbags made by? Who was ‘the Last Supper’ painted by? Who will the speech for the bridegroom be written by? What was the roof hit by during the storm?

PASSIVE FORM WITH INDIRECT OBJECT

• In English we can also use the Indirect Object of an active sentence as the subject of a passive one. Look at the structure of two active sentences with a Direct Object and an Indirect Object:

Subject They We

Verb gave will send

Indirect Object (IO) us Mr Bates

Direct Object (DO) a faster car a new password

Rest of the sentence

soon

• When there are both DO and IO, the passive sentence can be made in two ways. • As a rule, it is preferable to use the Indirect Object as the subject of a passive sentence. • When you use DO as the subject of the passive sentence, you must remember to put TO + Indirect

Object. We were given a faster car. OR A faster car was given to us. Mr Bates will be sent a new password soon. OR A new password will be sent to Mr Bates soon.

PASSIVE FORM WITH VERB + PREPOSITION

• In the passive sentence, with verbs followed by a preposition, the preposition is kept close to the verb, as in the examples below: Has anybody paid for these drinks? I don’t like it when people laugh at me. Have these drinks been paid for? I don’t like being laughed at.

VERBS OFTEN USED IN THE PASSIVE FORM + TO infinitive

• be allowed to Were you allowed to go to bed after 10pm as a child? • be supposed to Aren’t teachers supposed to be in class by 8 AM? • be expected to I’m not expected to tolerate this every day. • be told / asked to I was told not to leave the room for any reasons.

Write the two possible passive sentences. Omit the agent if it is not necessary. 0 We gave them a large pot of flowers. - They were given a large pot of flowers. - A large pot of flowers was given to them. 1 Somebody has sent Jane a postcard from

Miami. _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ 2 The Swedish Academy awarded T.S. Eliot the Nobel Prize in 1948. _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ 3 Tom taught French to our son. _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ 4 Somebody should tell her the truth. _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ 5 Our science teacher is always giving us loads of homework. _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ 6 The headmaster asked them a lot of questions. _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________

First Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first using the word in brackets. You must use between 2 and 5 words. 1 I’m sure someone will take care of the problem. (be) I’m sure the problem ________________________. 2 They expected her to apologise. (was) She ________________________ apologise. 3 He hates it when someone listens to him playing the He hates ________________________. piano. (listened) 4 They will never let you in. (allowed) You will never ________________________ get in. 5 Where was the woman last seen? (they) Where ________________________ the woman? 6 Who wrote these poems? (written) Who ________________________? 7 We’ll give her the present after dinner. (given) She will ________________________ after dinner. 8 Nobody was asked to leave. (ask) They ________________________ to leave.

27 Listen to the recording about porcelain and complete the text with the correct passive voice of the verbs in the box below.

bring control discover establish export follow found invent know set

Porcelain (1) ______________ by the Chinese in around the 7 th century AD. Then it (2) ______________ to the Islamic world. By the 14 th century porcelain was (3) ______________ to Europe by the Ming Dynasty, which (4) ______________ for its blue-and-white wares. Much of the porcelain trade (5) ______________ by the Ming Dynasty, thanks to which it spread all over Asia, Africa and Europe through the Silk Road. Later, Portuguese merchants began direct trade over the sea route with the Ming Dynasty in the 16 th century and they (6) ______________ by Dutch merchants. It was not until the early 18 th century that the Chinese process of making porcelain (7) ______________ by a German potter. In the following decades many European potteries started to (8) ______________ up. Many of the world’s best known potteries (9) ______________ during this period; Royal Saxon in 1710, Wedgwood in 1839, Royal Copenhagen in 1772, and Spade, which (10) ______________ in 1732 in England.