Using Passive Voice






The Passive Voice - YouTube

Reading Activity:

Warm-Up Activity
Speculate about a picture of a kidnapped girl. After that, form sentences out of the suggested words and word combinations to make up a story/news report.
Imagen relacionada

ü    Sara Ford kidnapped / yesterday.
ü    Threatening calls made / before.
ü    Sarah seen / last / park.
ü    Same day / letter sent.
ü    Sarah released / as soon as / kidnappers given $300,000.
ü    Police informed / immediately.
ü    All areas searched / since yesterday.

ü    Nothing found / so far.

Guess the inventions:

Complete eight clues about a familiar household object and read them to your partner. How quickly can you guess what the object is?

1.  The first one ______________(invent) in 1827.
2.  500 billion of them ______________ (use) every year.
3.  Their inventor died without ______________ (recognize) for his invention.
4.  They ______ usually _________ (sell) in a book or a box.
5.  People who collect them _________ (call) phillumenists.
6.  The early ones ___________ (know) as “lucifers”.
7.  They should not ______________ (give) to children to play with.
8.  They can ____________ (use) as toothpicks. 
Answer : 

1. They _______ first ________ (produce) in the 1890s.
2. They _______ usually ________ (make) of metal or plastic.
3. Their basic design _________ never _________ (improve).
4. They _________ (wear) by Norwegians in World War II as a symbol of unity.
5. They ________ (know) as ‘gems’ in Swedish.
6. Only 1 in 10 __________ (use) for its intended purpose.
7. They can ___________ (unfold) and _________ (use) to reset computerized devices.
8. They are supposed _____________ (use) to hold papers together.
Answer : 

Games- Trivia

PASSIVE VOICE LA LLAUNA - Concurso de preguntas (wordwall.net)

Gold Preliminary Unit 10 Passive Voice - Cuestionario (wordwall.net)

Trivia - Passive Voice - Cuestionario (wordwall.net)

B2.1. Passive Voice: Speaking - Rueda aleatoria (wordwall.net)

Written by Tim Corson and Rebecca Smollett, University College Writing Centre

What is passive voice?

In English, all sentences are in either “active” or “passive” voice:
active: Werner Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle in 1927.
passive: The uncertainty principle was formulated by Werner Heisenberg in 1927.
In an active sentence, the person or thing responsible for the action in the sentence comes first. In a passive sentence, the person or thing acted on comes first, and the actor is added at the end, introduced with the preposition “by.” The passive form of the verb is signaled by a form of “to be”: in the sentence above, “was formulated” is in passive voice while “formulated” is in active.
In a passive sentence, we often omit the actor completely:
The uncertainty principle was formulated in 1927.

When do I use passive voice?

In some sentences, passive voice can be perfectly acceptable. You might use it in the following cases:
  1. The actor is unknown:
    The cave paintings of Lascaux were made in the Upper Old Stone Age. [We don’t know who made them.]
  2. The actor is irrelevant:
    An experimental solar power plant will be built in the Australian desert. [We are not interested in who is building it.]
  3. You want to be vague about who is responsible:
    Mistakes were made. [Common in bureaucratic writing!]
  4. You are talking about a general truth:
    Rules are made to be broken. [By whomever, whenever.]
  5. You want to emphasize the person or thing acted on. For example, it may be your main topic:
    Insulin was first discovered in 1921 by researchers at the University of Toronto. It is still the only treatment available for diabetes.
  6. You are writing in a scientific genre that traditionally relies on passive voice. Passive voice is often preferred in lab reports and scientific research papers, most notably in the Materials and Methods section:
    The sodium hydroxide was dissolved in water. This solution was then titrated with hydrochloric acid.
    In these sentences you can count on your reader to know that you are the one who did the dissolving and the titrating. The passive voice places the emphasis on your experiment rather than on you.
    Note: Over the past several years, there has been a movement within many science disciplines away from passive voice. Scientists often now prefer active voice in most parts of their published reports, even occasionally using the subject “we” in the Materials and Methods section. Check with your instructor or TA whether you can use the first person “I” or “we” in your lab reports to help avoid the passive.
    To learn more about the use of passive voice in the sciences, visit our handout on writing in the sciences.

When should I avoid passive voice?

Passive sentences can get you into trouble in academic writing because they can be vague about who is responsible for the action:
Both Othello and Iago desire Desdemona. She is courted. [Who courts Desdemona? Othello? Iago? Both of them?]
Academic writing often focuses on differences between the ideas of different researchers, or between your own ideas and those of the researchers you are discussing. Too many passive sentences can create confusion:
Research has been done to discredit this theory. [Who did the research? You? Your professor? Another author?]
Some students use passive sentences to hide holes in their research:
The telephone was invented in the nineteenth century. [I couldn’t find out who invented the telephone!]
Finally, passive sentences often sound wordy and indirect. They can make the reader work unnecessarily hard. And since they are usually longer than active sentences, passive sentences take up precious room in your paper:
Since the car was being driven by Michael at the time of the accident, the damages should be paid for by him.
Practice Passive Voice with scenes from TV series 

Exercises

Listening Activity:
Listen to the followig sentences and complete them with the passive voice structure
Present
Past
Future
Present Continous
Future tense with "be goig to"
Modal Verbs

Using get to form the passive

http://www.learnamericanenglishonline.com/Listening_Lab/Listening_Lab_Exercise_45_using_get_Passive_Voice.html

Exercises on Passive (Form)

Exercises on Passive (Active → Passive)

Exercises on Passive (Active or Passive)

Grammar in Texts

Tests on Passive

Movie Segment to practice passive voice
http://moviesegmentstoassessgrammargoals.blogspot.com.co/search?q=300 

Recognize the passive voice structure in the following sentences

Up to 90% of the energy in light bulbs is wasted in the form of heat.

The first edition of Freud's earliest writings on dreams was published in 1899.

Drosophila melanogaster has been one of the most extensively studied species in genetics research.

The honey bees were kept in a humidified chamber at room temperature overnight.

The solution was heated to 90°C for approximately 30 minutes and then allowed to cool.

Carbohydrates are produced by green plants in the presence of light and chlorophyll.

 Transform the following sentences into passive voice:


1. They have offered me a voluntary job.

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

2. We should send the letter to the government.

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

3. They pay him a good salary.

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

4. We can lend her our research work on global warming.

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

5. They told me those young activists are British.

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

6. We gave the young activists food and money.

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

7. They are telling the students a sad story.

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

8. They have asked them difficult questions.

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

9. She brought me a beautiful present from Ireland.

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

10. Has anybody shown you the photographs?

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

11. Somebody will pay you to do the work.

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

12. They don’t let people feed the animals in zoos.

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

13. They have never made me do anything like that.

______________________________________________________
Passive Voice Game

 Students need to create a sentence using the words given (in passive) to give some kind of hint to his peers; for example: printing was invented by him. The rest of the students need to guess what/who it is. The right answers are given in brackets. If a student gets the correct answers, s/he gets 1 point.


Printing/invent

(Gutenberg)
Light bulb/invent

(Thomas Alva Edison)
America/discover

(Columbus)
Penicilin/discover

(Alexander Fleming)
Windows/make

(glass)
Tables/make

(wood)
Language/speak in Russia

(Russian)
Language/speak in Hungary
(Hungarian)
Wedding ring/make

(gold)
Clothes/make

(cotton)
Harry Potter/write

(JK Rowling)
Star Wars/direct

(George Lucas)
Electricity/invent

(Benjamin Franklin)
Frogs/eat

(storks)
Walls/make

(bricks)
War and Peace/ write

(Tolstoy)
Telephone/invent

(Alexander Graham Bell)
Jurassic Park/direct

(Steven Spielberg)
UK/rule

(queen)
ISS Station/rule

(NASA)
Our coursebook/publish

(Macmillan)
Music/download

(the Internet)
Planes/make

(aluminium)
Radioactivity/discover

(Maria Curie)




Get in groups of 3-5 people each and create your own news. The task is to write at least one sentence in passive in each column. You can get as creative as possible! When you are ready and mistakes are checked your news can be recorded.

These are some samples of breaking news 
International News!

More than 2.500 people ____________ (kill) during the earthquake in Iran. The earthquake measured 6.7 on the Richter’s scale.

Gossip Column

New scandalous photos of Gabriella Hunt ____________ (upload) online recently!
Sports News

The world 100 meters record____________ (break) the second time this week.


TV Guide

A new episode of Sponge Bob ____________  (shoot) our town this month!
Science

A new planet ____________ (find) in the constellation Aquarius. The planet ____________ (find) by astronomers in California last week.
Readers’ Letters

I wonder if anybody can answer my question. How much lipstick ____________ (eat) on
average  by a woman every year?




International News!
Gossip Column
Sports News
TV Guide
Science
Readers’ Letters


Quizzes on passive voice:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammarchallenge/pdfs/12_simplepassives_practice.pdf

WRITING ACTIVITIES 
Look at the piece of news in the next links and write down a similar piece of news using passive sentences. You can write a piece of news from a local newspaper.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)