The passive

The passive

passive voice

Fill in the Blank

Fill the gap with a suitable word:

Cars ............... invented in 1885.

Fill in the Blank

Fill the gap with a suitable word:

Air conditioning ............... invented in 1902.

Fill in the Blank

Fill the gap with a suitable word:

Cellphones are............... used a lot in today's world.

The passive voice

• All of the previous sentences were using the passive voice

• The passive voice is used when:

• We are more interested in the action than the people who do the action.

• We don't know who does the action

• We don't want to say who does the action because it is obvious or not important.

The passive voice

• To use the passive voice you need to use the verb to be and another verb in past participle

• You need to use the correct form of the verb to be depending on the tense of the sentence.

• You can use the preposition by to say who does the action (agent)

• e.g. Active voice: Mark Zuckerberg created facebook (past simple)

• e.g. Pasive voice: Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg ( be + past participle)

Multiple Choice

Electricity ..... Edison

• was discovered by
• was invented by
• was designed by
• was based on 

Multiple Choice

Spanish ________ in Colombia

• is spoken

• are spoken

• are speaked

Multiple Choice

Who invented the phone?
Who ...

• invented the phone by?
• did invented the phone by?
• by was the phone invented?
• was the phone invented by?

Multiple Choice

Which sentence is in the passive form

• They make chocolate in Switzerland.

• This chocolate is made in Switzerland.

• This chocolate is makes in England

• They made this chocolate in Switzerland