Welcome to Lesson 2 of the Paraphrase Writing E-course. In this lesson, you will rewrite sentences and change them into the passive form.
Most sentences are written in active form. So, if you can rewrite sentences in a passive form you will learn a good paraphrasing skill.
What is a passive sentence?
Look at these two sentences.
- The cat ate the fish.
- The fish was eaten by the cat.
The first sentence is active. The second sentence is passive.
Here are five rules for writing passive sentences.
- Passive sentences emphasize the result of an action. The action is at the beginning of the sentence. Here is an example. “Thousands of people were killed by the tsunami.”
- The main verb is in the participle form. Look at this sentence. “The car was stolen by a teenager.”
- Add the verb “be” to the sentence. Change the “be” verb so that it matches the new subject (the result). Put the verb in the right tense. Here is an example of a past tense sentence. “The boys ate the cake. The cake was eaten by the boys.”
- Some verbs cannot be used in passive form. For example: arrive, come, cry, die, go, sleep and walk.
- Passive sentence usually have “by” when describing who did the action. Here is an example. “The glass vase was made by the woman from Japan.”
Now it’s your turn
Download the worksheets here. There are 17 sentences written in the active form. Rewrite each sentence in the passive form. There are suggested answers at the end of the worksheet.
Good luck.