4 Steps to ace your Active and Passive questions in Synthesis & Transformation

Two of the infamous S&T question types that P5 & P6 students often make mistakes in are Reported Speech and Active and Passive. With the WA1 looming ahead, we have been working hard on understanding the correct steps to answering both these question types with our P5 students and reviewing their rules with our P6 students.

Active to Passive and vice versa can be quite confusing for many. To ensure that our P5 students have understood and eventually master this S&T question type, we have come up with steps that they need to follow when faced with such a question. They also have a list that they should use every time that they come across such questions. This is until they have memorised the verb changes.

What are the steps to ace Active to Passive?

Step 1: Identify the subject and object in your sentence.

Changing an active sentence to a passive sentence means that the object now becomes the subject and the subject becomes the object.

Step 2: Identify the correct Tense that the verb is in.

Students must be able to identify the tense of the verb. Past? Present? Continuous? Future? Perfect?

Eats – Present tense

Step 3: Using the list given, identify which helping verb is used for which Tense in changing active to passive.

Students are supposed to know this by heart.

Present Tense – is / are + participle

Step 4: Check for agreement in the sentence.

If the Subject (which was previously the Object) is singular, the helping verb should follow.

Subject – S
The biscuit is eaten by the dog

We hope that these tips are helpful to you when faced with Active to Passive Type questions in your Synthesis & Transformation questions!

Active	Passive
Present Tense The dog eats the biscuit.	is / are + participle The biscuit is eaten by the dog
Past Tense The dog ate the biscuit.	was / were + participle The biscuit was eaten by the dog.
Continuous Tense  The dog is eating the biscuit.	is / are / was / were / + being + participle The biscuit is being eaten by the dog.
Perfect Tense The dog has eaten the biscuit.	has / have / had + been + participle The biscuit has been eaten by the dog.
Future Tense The dog will eat the biscuit.	will + be + participle The biscuit will be eaten by the dog.