GRAMMAR THE PASSIVE VOICE Remember that the Passive Voice is used when the focus is on the action. It is often not important, or not known, who does the action. Passives are formed with to be + Past Participle. To turn an active sentence into a passive sentence, the object of the active sentence becomes the subject in the passive sentence and the subject of the active sentence becomes object in the passive sentence (or is left out). TENSE Present Simple Subject + am/are/is + Past Participle Past Simple Subject + was/were + Past Participle Future Subject + will be + Past Participle Present Continuous Subject + am/are/is + being + Past Participle Past Continuous Subject + was/were + being + Past Participle Present Perfect Subject + have/has + been + Past Participle Past Perfect Subject + had + been + Past Participle Present Conditional Subject + would be + Past Participle Past Conditional Subject + would have been + Past Participle Something tells me that Sardinia s sea ecosystem has been rather modified by the recent climate changes 5 Complete the sentences with passive forms of the verbs in brackets. 1. Pollution ............................................................ mainly by human action. (create - present simple) ACTIVITIES 2. Nuclear power stations ............................................................ to be dangerous. (believe - past simple) 3. A new water treatment plant ............................................................ in a few months. (build - future) 4. Just now, many rain forest trees ............................................................ (cut down - present continuous) 5. Vegetable food material ............................................................ for making compost. (use - past continuous) 6. The recycling program ............................................................ efficiently. (carry out - present perfect) 7. In the past, not enough of our garbage ............................................................. (differentiate - past perfect) 8. Aluminium cans must ............................................................ to make useful materials. (recycle - infinitive) 9. Oil spills can ............................................................ by bioremediation. (clean - infinitive) 10. Laboratory glassware must always ............................................................ carefully. (wash - infinitive) 206 Module 5 ATOMS