GRAMMAR ENGLISH C1 LEVEL

9. PASSIVE VOICE
Formation: The Passive Voice is formed with the verb BE in the
appropriate tense + the past participle of the main verb. The
person who performs an action in a passive sentence is called
the agent and is preceded by the preposition by. The agent may
or may not be mentioned.
My purse was found by one of the cleaners. // A new road has
been built.
With + instrument/material and of + material describe what caused the action or
what the agent used to perform it:
This photograph was taken with an expensive camera. // This jumper is made of wool.

TENSE ACTIVE VOICE PASSIVE VOICE

Present The boys eat the pie. The pie is eaten by the boys.

Present continuous The boys are eating the pie The pie is being eaten by the
boys

Present perfect The boys have eaten the pie The pie has been eaten by the
boys

Past simple The boys ate the pie The pie was eaten by the boys

Past continuous The boys were eating the pie The pie was being eaten by the
boys

Past perfect The boys had eaten the pie The pie had been eaten by the
boys

Future simple The boys will eat the pie The pie will be eaten by the boys

Future perfect The boys will have eaten the pie The pie will have been eaten by
the boys

Going to The boys are going to eat the The pie is going to be eaten by
pie. the boys.

Present infinitive The boys began to eat the pie The pie began to be eaten by the
boys

Perfect infinitive The boys seem to have eaten the The pie seems to have been eaten
pie by the boys

-ing (gerund) I don’t like people telling me I don’t like being told what to do
what to do
The passive voice can also be used with modals:
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 GRAMMAR ENGLISH C1 LEVEL

Modals

Active

Passive

Modal perfect

PRESENT SIMPLE

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