Grammar — The Passive
- Present Simple — The power is provided by hydrogen fuel-cells. Behavioural Economics is used for making good decisions in all areas of life.
- Present Continuous — The documents are being prepared for you. A new role is being created in my department.
- Past Simple — The first fully electric vehicle was developed in 2013. The participants were shown photos of themselves.
- Past Continuous — Too much water was being wasted. The goods were being flown in from the other side of the world.
- Present Perfect — All of your suggestions have been taken into account. My brother has just been awarded a promotion.
- Past Perfect — Rescuers set up tents for people whose homes had been washed away in floods. A bigger pay rise had been promised to Saeed.
- Modal verbs — The energy can only be stored for a short time. The skills that can be developed from studying economics may be transferred to numerous industries.
- will — The job will probably be given to Adnan. How much will I be charged for the service?
- going to — They are going to be given wonderful presents. The customers are going to be served the chef’s finest dishes.
- The Passive infinitive — A difficult decision had to be made. Issa is expecting to be given a pay rise.
- The Passive gerund — The crisis will result in more and more shops being closed down. I’d appreciate the concept being explained once again.
- We use the Passive when:
- we emphasise the action more than the agent: Florida was destroyed. (We’re only concerned with what happened to Florida, not the cause.)
- Florida was destroyed by Hurricane Irma. (We use by when we mention the agent in Passive sentences: when the action is old information and the agent is new information.)
- Hurricane Irma destroyed Florida. (In the active sentence, we’re focusing on the agent, on what Hurricane Irma did.)
- the agent is unknown or unimportant: A fully electric vehicle was developed. (We don’t know or don’t care who developed it, the important thing is the fact that it happened.)
- the agent is ‘people in general’: Much less energy was consumed. (Logically, it was everyone or people in general who consumed the energy.)
- the agent is so obvious we don’t need to express it: Aviation fuel is taxed. (Logically we can deduct that the agent must be the government.)
- we don’t want to start the sentence with a long complex subject: The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was further reduced by storing the gas in carbon ‘sinks’ in abandoned mines deep underground. (The agent, underlined here, would be a very long and clumsy subject to begin a sentence with.)
- when we want to be tactful and not mention the agent: All the biscuits have been eaten. (instead of: You’ve eaten all the biscuits!)
- In spoken English, the Passive form is often replaced with an active form with the verb get.
- The car got repaired by the side of the road.
- I got hit by a bicycle while crossing the road.
- His leg got broken when he was skiing.