Page 130 - IELTS Preparation Grammar and Vocab

18 The passive

Perfect passive forms are also possible More people claim to have been the victims of crime. More people have
been caught selling drugs this year than ever before. This figure is expected to have fallen by next year.
Most passives with modal verbs are formed with modal + be + past participle or modal + have been + past
participle:
The reason for this can be found in the huge increase in the number of mobile phones.
Some of the fall might have been caused by lower rates of reporting. (past)
pp Passive forms of verbs with two objects

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I was delighted when our crime statistics department gave me the figures. (active)
I was delighted when I was given the figures by our Crime Statistics Department. (passive) or
was delighted when the figures were given (to) me by our Crime Statistics Department. (passive)
(See Unit 9, 2.1 for more on verbs with two objects.)
Verbs followed by object + complement in the active have one passive form:
Attitudes have changed significantly since Peter Miles was appointed head of the police service.
2.4 Get + past participle; get/have + object + past participle
'11rE
ir.1111 111
It's true that more people get mugged today than they did ten years ago. or ... are mugged ...
People think more carefully about committing a crime if they know they might get caught or might be
caught.
Particularly in speech, we can use get + past participle instead of be + past participle.

Get + past participle is most commonly used to talk about unwelcome events (e.g. get mugged), but we can also
use it with positive events: When we got elected ten years ago ...
We don't use get + past participle with verbs describing states:
He was known to be a highly effective senior police officer (not He-got-known-to-be ...)
We can use either have + object + past participle or (more informally)get + object + past participle
to say that someone arranges for someone else to do something for them:
Virtually every person in my road has had/got a burglar alarm fitted recently.
to say that something unexpected, and usually unpleasant, happens to someone:
I had my TV and stereo taken, or very informally got my TV and stereo taken.
We use a reflexive pronoun with get to suggest that the subject is responsible for their actions.
People will think more carefully if they know they're going to get themselves arrested.

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