Active and Passive

Go through the text sentence by sentence and use these three steps.

1. Find a form of be: am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being.
2. Look at the next verb: is it a past participle (3rd form)? Regular verbs end in -ed (checked, planned). Irregular verbs have their own form (seen, made, taken, forgotten).
3. Ask: who does the action? If the subject does not do the action (something happens to it), it is the passive.
   The prison was turned into a museum. → The prison doesn’t do anything – somebody turned it into a museum.

Formula: a form of be + past participle. Click the whole form, not only one word.

• be + -ing is active (progressive): the dams were getting emptier, families have been saving water ❌ no passive.
  But: are being planned ✅ passive – there is a past participle at the end.
• have/has/had + past participle without been is active: scientists had warned, the crisis has become ❌ no passive.
• be + adjective is no passive: they are afraid ❌.
• Modal verb + be + past participle is passive: can be seen, might be forgotten, must not be wasted ✅
• Small words can stand in the middle: have already been repaired, must not be wasted – they are part of the passive form.

Use this card only if you really can’t find them all.

• Paragraph 1 (In South Africa …): 1 passive form – look at the end.
• Paragraph 2 (Suddenly …): 2 passive forms – both in the simple past.
• Paragraph 3 (Since then …): 3 passive forms – one with already, one with can.
• Paragraph 4 (Experts believe …): 4 passive forms – one with will, one with being, two with modal verbs.

Can’t remember a tense? Look at the Tenses Review.