Active and Passive

Active and Passive

Show by means of sentences whether these verbs can be used both in active and also in passive constructions.

A cat drinking water droplets.

© מאיר לוי (Meir Levy), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.5.

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Active and Passive

© מאיר לוי (Meir Levy), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.5. Source

A cat drinking water droplets.

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A cat laps up falling water droplets in Golan, Israel. Alternatively, falling water droplets are lapped up by a cat in Golan, Israel.

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Introduction

In the sentence ‘John repairs clocks’ John is the cause of the repairs; we say that this sentence is in the active voice. But in the sentence ‘The clock has been repaired’ the clock is not the cause of the repair; we call this a passive sentence. For each verb below, try to write one active sentence and one passive sentence. For which verbs is this awkward or not possible?

The words in this puzzle are taken randomly from a list of 943 common words.

For example:

Beat the mixture until smooth’ (active).

‘United were beaten five-nil last night’ (passive).

1. Breakfast. 2. Chip. 3. Debate. 4. Fine. 5. Hand. 6. Introduce. 7. Pool. 8. Relieve. 9. Was.

To get another set of words, simply refresh this page.

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