Page 129 - IELTS Preparation Grammar and Vocab

The passive 18

Grammar
II

igg Using the passive

START POINT
The government has published a report today. (active: focus on the government)
A report has been published by the government today. (passive: focus on a report)

We often use passive verbs:
when the agent (the person or thing that performs the action) is not known:My house was broken into only
last week.
when the agent is 'people in general': The details can be found at the back of the report. (= anyone can find
these details)
when the agent is unimportant, or is obvious:A much higher proportion of offenders have been arrested.
(= the agent is clearly the police)
when we don't want to say who the agent is:it may be that some minor mistakes were made in collecting the
figures. (= she might not want to say who was responsible for the mistakes)
to describe procedures or processes, focusing on what was done rather than who did it:The figures were
collected over a ten-year period.
to avoid repeating the agent in a description or narrative: The police have made good use of CCTV. Its been
introduced into many city centres, rather than The police have made good use of CCTV. The police have
introduced it into many city centres.
In informal contexts we often use active sentences with a subject such as people, somebody/someone, something,
we, they or you even when we do not know who the agent is. In more formal contexts we often use a passive to
avoid mentioning an agent:
People are seeing less graffiti in city centres. or more formallyLess graffiti is being seen
Some verbs describing states (e.g. have, become, seem) are not usually made passive:
Other countries have a similar policy. (not ' )
However, other verbs describing states can be passive (e.g. intend, know, own):
Our latest poster campaign is intended to reassure people.

Egg Active and passive verb forms
Compare these passive forms of active verb patterns.
Active Passive

They started to keep records ten years ago. Records started to be kept only ten years ago.
This figure is expected to fall as they start using This figure is expected to fall rapidly as new
new technology to trace stolen phones. technology starts being used to trace stolen mobiles.
They made them repair the damage. People found guilty of vandalism are made to repair
the damage they've caused.
The police caught them selling drugs. More people were caught selling drugs.
We expect the figure to fall rapidly. This figure is expected to fall rapidly.
We want the crime rate to fall still further. Some verbs in this pattern have no passive
(not )
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