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I can convert sentences between the active and passive voice.

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Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2023), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

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Key learning points

There are different tenses and ways of forming verbs in English.
In the passive voice, the verb is 'done to' the subject.
The passive voice allows the speaker or writer to sound more detached from the sentence content than the active voice.
The active voice is the most frequently heard, spoken and written voice in English.
A clause in the passive voice contains two verbs: an auxiliary verb from the infinitive 'to be' and the past participle.

Common misconception

Pupils may struggle to maintain the correct tense when converting between active and passive.

Encourage pupils to consider the different tense options and find the one that sounds best.

Keywords

Subject - the noun, noun phrase or pronoun that does or is the main verb in the active voice
Object - the noun, noun phrase or pronoun that receives the action of the main verb in the active voice
Verb - a being, a doing or a having word
Active voice - a spoken or written voice in which the subject does the verb in a sentence
Passive voice - a spoken or written voice in which the subject is acted upon by the verb

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Hi, I'm Mr. Buckingham, and I'm so pleased you've decided to join me today for our lesson on the active and passive voice.

I'm really looking forward to teaching you this skill, and I'll be here to help you the whole way through.

So let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called Using the Active and Passive Voice, from our unit called three tense forms, modality, active voice and passive voice.

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to convert sentences between the active and passive voice.

So we're going to focus today on how we can write sentences in the active and the passive voice, which is very useful in itself, but just as important, we're going to think carefully about the effect of using each of those voices on our meaning and on what's being emphasised in our sentences.

Let's get to work.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

My turn, your turn.

Subject, object, verb, active voice, and passive voice.

Well done, so a subject is the noun, noun phrase or pronoun that does or is the main verb in the active voice.

And an object is the noun, noun phrase or pronoun that receives the action of the main verb in the active voice.

As I'm sure you know, a verb is a being, a doing or a having word.

And the active voice is a spoken or written voice in which the subject does the verb in a sentence.

And the passive voice is a spoken or written voice in which the subject is acted upon by the verb.

We'll explore all those ideas in much more detail as we go through the lesson.

Let's look at our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by converting from the active to the passive voice, before moving on to converting between the two.

Now, as you may know, some simple sentences have a subject, a verb, and an object.

For example, the food upset my stomach.

Here we've got the verb upset, that's what's being done.

It's being done by the subject, the food, that's the noun that's doing that verb upset, and it's doing it to my stomach.

So that's the object, the noun that the verb is done to.

And subjects and objects can be nouns, noun phrases or pronouns, in this case, they're both noun phrases, the food and my stomach.

Here's another example, she upset me.

Here we've got some pronouns as the subject and object.

We've got the verb upset again, she is the subject, a pronoun, and me is the object, another pronoun.

Here's another example.

We've got the same verb, upset, what's it being done by? The rude man, the subject, and done to his younger cousin, the object.

In each of these sentences, the subject is doing the verb to an object, the noun, pronoun, or noun phrase that receives the action of the verb.

So upset is being done to his younger cousin, it's being done to me, it's being done to my stomach, and it's being done by the subject.

So the subject is doing the verb to the object.

Let's see if you can identify the subject, the verb, and the object in each of these sentences.

Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, great effort, let's take a look.

So in A, we've got the verb opened, being done by my curious little brother, to the object, the cupboard.

So we've got the subject, my curious little brother, the verb, opened, and the object, the cupboard.

In B, we've got the verb shocked being done by the subject, the nervous soldier, to the object, his rusty rifle.

And C, we've got the verb took being done by the subject, we, to the object, the opportunity.

Great job if you've got those already.

Now, normally a sentence like the ones we've just seen has the subject doing the verb to an object.

Here's another example.

My behaviour appalled Miss O'Neill.

Here we've got the verb appalled, is being done by my behaviour, to the object, Miss O'Neill.

When the subject does the verb to the object, we call this the active voice.

But sometimes we can make what would normally be the object, the subject of the sentence.

And now the verb will be being done to the subject.

Let me show you.

So we're gonna take the object, Miss O'Neill, and make it the subject.

Now we've got, Miss O'Neill was appalled by my behaviour.

We've still got that verb, was appalled, notice how it's got a was in front of it now.

But now that object, Miss O'Neill, has become the subject.

And when the object becomes the subject like this, we call it the passive voice.

So now that verb, was appalled, is being done to the subject.

Here are two sentences in the active voice.

The laboratory developed a new vaccine, and the engineers are fixing the system.

Here we can see a new vaccine and the system are the objects, that's what this sentence is being done to.

The laboratory is developing the new vaccine and the engineers are fixing the system.

The verbs developed and fixing are being done to these objects.

And now we can convert them to the passive voice.

So we're gonna take those objects and make them the subject.

A new vaccine was developed by the laboratory.

The system is being fixed by the engineers.

So we can see that the normal object, a new vaccine and the system, has become the subject, that's there, the start of the sentence now.

And there's now an auxiliary verb based on to be, we've got was, and is being as an auxiliary verb, which wasn't there in the active voice.

We've also got a main verb in the past tense form, so developed and fixed.

Notice how it was fixing in the active voice, it's now changed to is being fixed.

And we've also got the old subject, the laboratory and the engineers, in a preposition phrase at the end of the sentence, using by, by the laboratory and by the engineers.

I wonder if you can find the sentences that are written in the passive voice using all those clues we just saw.

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good try, let's have a look.

So in A, we've got the animal was sacrificed by the priest.

I can see an auxiliary verb, was, I can see a past tense verb, sacrifice, and that preposition, by.

So yes, that was the passive voice.

Normally we would say, the priest sacrificed the animal, but we've made that old object, the animal, the subject, and that's what makes it the passive voice.

Great job if you've got that one.

In B, we've got the competition was won by our school team.

Again, that's the passive voice.

Normally we'd say, our school team won the competition.

We've taken that object, the competition, and made it the subject.

C says, the other school took their opportunities.

No, that's not the passive voice.

We've got some good clues there, there's no auxiliary verb, and we don't have by as a preposition at the end there.

D says, Mr. Martinez was not persuaded by my arguments.

That one is the passive voice.

Normally we'd say, my arguments did not persuade Mr. Martinez.

We've put that object, Mr. Martinez, as the subject, now was not being persuaded to being done to Mr. Martinez, so this is the passive voice.

Great job if you've managed to spot those.

So what tells us that this sentence is in the passive voice? And I gave you a few clues already.

Mr. Martinez was not persuaded by my arguments.

Can you pick all of the reasons that tell us that that sentence is in the passive voice? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good thinking.

So let's look at the examples in detail.

A says, the active sentence would be, my arguments did not persuade Mr. Martinez, and the object of this, Mr. Martinez, is now the subject, that's true, that's what makes it the passive voice.

B says, it contains the preposition by, introducing a preposition phrase, which is common in the passive voice, again, that's true.

And then we said it contains a subject, a verb, and an object, now that's actually not true in this example, we have a subject now, Mr. Martinez, and a verb, was not persuaded, but by my argument is not an object, because it's a preposition phrase.

That word by prevents it from being an object.

Then D says, it contains auxiliary verb based on to be, was not, and a past tense form of a main verb, which is persuaded, and that's true.

So all those are clues that this was the passive voice.

Great job.

So the purpose of the passive voice is to change the emphasis of the active voice sentence.

So for example, in the active voice we would say, the laboratory developed the vaccine.

We could say that this emphasises the role of the laboratory in developing the vaccine.

Notice how the laboratory is the thing right at the start of the sentence, it's the thing doing that verb, developed, so this sentence in the active voice emphasises the laboratory doing that action.

It emphasises who is doing that verb.

In the passive voice, it would look like this, the vaccine was developed by the laboratory.

So here, this emphasises the fact that the vaccine was being developed, not the laboratory that developed it.

We've got the vaccine now having the developing done to it.

So the action of developing is being emphasised instead of the thing, or person, or place that did that action.

So the passive voice is really helpful when we want to focus on the effects of an action rather than who did it.

So in our passive voice here, we focused on the vaccine and not on the laboratory that developed it.

So in fact, when we make an active sentence passive, we sometimes remove the original subject altogether.

Let me show you.

If I said in the active voice, the engineers are fixing the system, then the object is the system and the subject is the engineers.

In the passive voice, we would say, the system is being fixed by the engineers.

We've now taken that object and made it the subject.

But we've now got this preposition phrase, by the engineers.

And this preposition phrase is optional.

It could be removed to further emphasise the action, the system being fixed, instead of who is doing it, the engineers.

So I could say, the system is being fixed, full stop, and not have that preposition phrase at all.

So the engineers were the subject of the active voice sentence, but I can remove them completely from this sentence in the passive voice.

Here's another example.

The author is writing the book, is in the active voice, and we've got that object, the book, let's make it the passive voice.

The book is being written by the author.

So this emphasises the fact that the book is being written instead of the fact that it's being written by the author.

But I could remove that preposition phrase by the author and just say, the book is being written, and now we're really just emphasising the fact, the action of the book being written and not who's doing that.

So which of the following sentences here are in the passive voice? And what's being emphasised in each sentence? Think carefully here about what the writer of these sentences is trying to emphasise.

Is it the action that's being done or the person that's doing the action? Pause the video and think carefully about this one.

Okay, let's take a look.

In A it says, a group of scientists conducted a major experiment.

So that is emphasising the action of the scientists.

And we don't have any of the hints that it's a passive voice sentence, this one is not in the passive voice, it's in the active voice.

So this really emphasises the role of those scientists.

B says, a major experiment was conducted by a group of scientists.

Ah, so now the experiment has come at the start, and the scientists, the old subject, are at the end of the sentence in our preposition phrase.

So this one is the passive voice.

And here this emphasises the fact the experiment was conducted, not the scientists who did it.

And now can you see we've dropped that preposition phrase by a group of scientists altogether in C, a major experiment was conducted.

So this is still the passive voice, but here this further emphasises the experiment being conducted and it completely de-emphasizes, it removes the role of the scientists altogether.

So you can see here the effect of using the passive voice and removing that preposition phrase on the meaning of our sentence.

Really good job if you've got those.

So when we convert a sentence from the active voice to the passive voice, we've seen that the normal object becomes the new subject.

So this new subject moves to the beginning of the clause.

Here's an example, in the active voice we would say, just then, lightning struck the church tower.

The church tower is our object, so in the passive voice we would say, just then, the church tower was struck by lightning.

It's now become the subject of this clause.

And notice how we've got that adverbial phrase in front, which isn't affected by this change.

So the old subject is now a preposition phrase using by, it's by lightning.

And we also have an auxiliary verb based on to be, which is was, and we have our past tense form of the main verb, which is struck.

But sometimes that past tense form of the main verb in the passive voice will be different to the active form of that verb.

For instance, in the active voice we'd say, the secretary took the letters.

So let's imagine if we made the letters the subject, we'd say the letters, well done, we'd say the letters were taken by the secretary.

So that verb has changed from took to taken.

In the active voice we'd say, Father Eddie gave the sermon.

Think about that object, the sermon, becoming the subject, we'd say, the sermon, well done, was given by Father Eddie, great one.

In this one we've got, many people speak the language.

Let's make that object, the language, the subject, would be, the language is spoken by many people, great job.

So we must always make sure that the auxiliary verb is in the right tense here.

So we've got were taken, was given, is spoken, and those are slightly different tenses.

We've got to match them to what we started with in the active voice in the normal sentence.

And we've got to use what sounds right here to decide on the right verb forms. We've gone from many people speak, that's the present tense, to the language is spoken by many people, we're still talking about it in the present tense by using that auxiliary verb is.

So you've got to be careful with those and think about what sounds right in each circumstance.

So can you match each active voice sentence to its passive voice version here? And notice how lots of these verbs are similar, but they're not the same, because the tense is slightly different.

See if you can match them up to their equivalent in the same tense, but using now the passive voice versus the active voice.

Pause the video and have a think.

Great job, well done.

So A says, the scientists are developing a new system.

That's the present progressive tense, so I could make it, a new system is being developed by the scientists.

In B I've said, the scientists developed a new system.

That's the simple past tense, so I could say, a new system was developed by the scientists.

And C says, the scientists were developing a new system.

That's the past progressive tense, so I could say, a new system was being developed by the scientists.

Now you don't need to think carefully about which tense you're using here, you have to think what sounds right in each circumstance.

We don't have to know if it's the past progressive, we have to know what sounds right as the right equivalent in the passive voice.

Great job if you managed to match those up.

Now, let's see if we can do a conversion.

Can you convert each active voice sentence here into the passive voice? Remember, you're taking the object and making it the subject in the passive voice.

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, great effort.

So in A we've said, the sound of prayers is filling the mosque.

So filling the mosque will become the subject, we would say the mosque is being filled by the sound of prayers, great one.

In B we said, our arguments persuaded the head teacher.

The head teacher's the object, it's gonna become the subject in the passive, we would say, the head teacher was persuaded by our arguments.

His prejudice were affecting his judgement.

So his judgement is the object here, so it become, his judgement was being affected by his prejudices, with his judgement as the new subject in the passive voice.

Fantastic job if you managed to make those conversions.

So let's do our first task for this lesson.

I'm going to show you some active voice sentences, and I want you to convert them into the passive voice.

And remember to check that you're using the correct auxiliary verb and the past tense main verb that you need.

So here are your active voice sentences, you need to identify the object and make it the subject in the passive voice, and then make all the changes to the auxiliary verb and the main verb that you need in order to make it sound right in the passive voice.

Pause the video and have a go.

Okay, let's have a look at these sentences in the passive voice.

For A we would say, some new playground equipment was purchased by the school.

For B we would say, our local leisure centre is being flooded by water.

For C, the ancient symbols were being decoded by the archaeologist.

For D, the new stadium was opened by a city councillor.

And for E, the environment is being damaged by human activity.

And for F, some important new rules were introduced by the government.

Now remember, in each of these cases, we could actually go even further in making these passive by removing those preposition phrases.

You could say, our local leisure centre is being flooded, we wouldn't necessarily even need to say by water there.

So that would be another way of emphasising the action of being flooded over what's doing it.

Really well done if you've managed to make those conversions, great job.

So let's move on now to looking at the second part of our lesson where we're going to be converting between the active and passive voice.

So we've seen that we can use the passive voice when we want to emphasise the action that's being done rather than the doer of the action.

For example, a team of local scientists conducted a study, is the active voice.

We've got that study as the object, so in the passive voice we would say, a study was conducted by a team of local scientists.

And we know we can go even further and say, a study was conducted, if we remove that preposition phrase, which really emphasises the action being done and not who's doing it, because it's not even there anymore.

So we use the active voice when we want to emphasise the doer of the action.

So in the passive voice we could say this, the vital breakthrough was made by Dr.

Alice Smith.

That's the passive, because the normal object, the vital breakthrough, has become the subject.

But in the active voice, we wanna emphasise Dr.

Alice Smith, so we would say, Dr.

Alice Smith made the vital breakthrough, and that really emphasises her as the doer of the action, as the person making that vital breakthrough.

You can see we might want to do both of these things depending on what we're trying to emphasise, the action or the doer.

So which of these sentences are written in the active voice? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good try.

So in A we've said, my neighbour caused the noise.

That really emphasises my neighbour making that noise, so that is the active voice.

In B it says, the noise that woke us up was caused by my neighbour.

So here the action is being emphasised, the waking up, so that's the passive voice.

C says, Miss O'Neill contacted parents during the residential.

This really emphasises Miss O'Neill's role as the person doing that verb, so that's the active voice.

And then D says, parents were contacted by Miss O'Neill during the residential.

That emphasises the fact that they were contacted and not that it was Miss O'Neill doing it, so that's the passive voice and not the active, fantastic job.

Hopefully you're really starting to see the difference in emphasis in these two voices.

Now, one really important thing to remember is that every passive voice sentence is a version of an active voice sentence, where the object has become the subject.

So the object of that active voice sentence, the normal sentence, has become the subject in the passive voice.

So for example, in the active voice we might say, the archaeologist discovered a new civilization.

And then we would take that object, a new civilization, and make it the subject of the passive voice sentence.

A new civilization was discovered by the archaeologist.

That's the passive voice.

So in order to revert back to return to the active voice, we have to restore the old subject, the archaeologist in this case, which is now in that preposition phrase, starting with by, after the verb discovered.

So there's the old subject, it's now in that preposition phrase, and we're going to just restore it back.

The archaeologist discovered a new civilization, and we're back in the active voice, easy as that.

So we find that subject of the active sentence in the preposition phrase at the end of the passive sentence.

The archaeologist was moved into that preposition phrase, by the archaeologist, so to make it back to the active, we just take it from that preposition phrase and put it back as the subject of the sentence.

So here is some more examples of sentences being converted from the passive voice back to the active voice.

In the passive voice we would say, the equipment was damaged by a mischievous child.

So we've now got to make a mischievous child the subject again to make it the active voice.

So we would say, you're right, a mischievous child damaged the equipment.

In the passive voice we'd say, the truth was uncovered by a thorough investigation.

So we're gonna take that old subject, a thorough investigation, and restore it as the subject, and make, a thorough investigation uncovered the truth, in the active voice.

In the passive we'd say, the results were interfered with by a rogue judge.

That rogue judge in the preposition phrase needs to become the subject in the active voice, so we'd say, a rogue judge interfered with the results.

So we find that subject to the active sentence in that preposition phrase at the end of the passive sentence, a mischievous child, a thorough investigation, a rogue judge, and we just have to make that the subject of the sentence again, and we've made it back to the active voice.

So can you match each passive voice sentence to its active voice version? Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, you probably spotted the passive voice sentences are on the left.

So we've got, the head teacher was shocked by the noise level in the passive voice.

So we're gonna take that, the noise level, from the preposition phrase and make it the subject again.

The noise level shocked the head teacher.

B says, the government was forced to act by Parliament.

Parliament in that preposition phrase, let's make it the subject, Parliament forced the government to act.

C says, the restaurant was closed by the health inspector.

The health inspector is in that proposition phrase, let's make it the subject, the health inspector closed the restaurant.

Really well done if you managed to switch those back to the active voice, great job.

Let's see now if we can convert each passive voice sentence back into the active voice.

So these three are all in the passive voice.

Remember to look in the preposition phrase for that subject of the active voice sentence.

Pause the video and see if you can make these conversions.

Well done, good try, let's have a look.

So in A we've said, the competition was won by the team that scored the most goals.

Ooh, that's a very long preposition phrase, by the team that scored the most goals.

So the team that scored the most goals is going to be the subject of our active voice sentence.

It would be, the team that scored the most goals won the competition, good job.

In B we've said, his shoulder was injured by a rough tackle.

We've got a rough tackle there, let's make that the subject.

A rough tackle injured his shoulder.

And in C we've said, the system was overwhelmed by a surge of electricity.

A surge of electricity needs to be the new subject at the active voice, so it would be, a surge of electricity overwhelmed the system.

Great job finding those subject to the active voice sentence in the preposition phrase and restoring it back to being the subject of those sentences, good work.

So we can now convert from active to passive, and from passive back to active.

Let's see if we can convert each of these sentences to the opposite voice, so if it's passive, we'll make it active, if it's active, we'll make it passive.

Here's one, Mr. Martinez explained the task, that is in the, well done, active voice.

So to make it passive, we're gonna take the task and we're going to put it as the subject.

We would say, the task was explained by Mr. Martinez.

And remember, we've had to add that auxiliary verb was, we've got by as our preposition, and we've maintained here the same past tense form of the verb, but that won't always be the case as we saw before.

Here's another sentence.

My drawing was being criticised by everyone.

Active or passive? It's passive.

So here we've got everyone in that preposition phrase, let's make it the subject to go back to active.

Everyone was criticising my drawing is in the active voice.

So we also have to make sure we maintain the same tense when we're converting between active and passive.

So let's look at one sentence in different forms, where we're maintaining the tense.

So in the active voice we would say, the government made a decision, that's in the past tense.

So in the passive voice we'd say, a decision was made by the government.

What if we said, the government was making a decision? Now you've got the past progressive tense.

So we'd have to change to, a decision was being made by the government.

Notice how now we've got two auxiliary verbs, was being, because we started off with was making, and now we've still got that past tense form of the verb, made.

But we started off with making, it's become made.

In the active voice we could say, the government has made a decision.

That is the present perfect tense, and in this case, we're going to change it to, a decision has been made by the government.

Again, two auxiliary verbs there.

Now you don't need to worry, as I said before, about which tenses we're using here.

We've got to think what sounds right to maintain the same tense.

Let's do one last example.

The government is making a decision.

Now that's in the present progressive, but in the passive voice, we're gonna take a decision and make it the subject, and we say, a decision is being made by the government.

We are saying is being, not was being, because we started off in the present with is making.

So we've had to maintain that tense.

Okay, let's practise that.

So which of the following is the correct active voice version of this passive voice sentence? The prayers are being led by our local imam.

So you can see three verbs there, are being led.

So we need to make this back to the active voice by putting our local imam back as the subject.

Which of these will be the correct version? Pause the video and have a careful think.

Okay, let's take a look.

A says, our local imam led the prayers.

Well, we don't have any sense of that happening over a period of time.

Are being led suggests over a period of time.

So no, that one's not right.

Our local imam was leading the prayers, is a progressive tense, we got that verb leading.

But it's saying was leading, which is in the past, and in our passive voice sentence we said, are being led, which is in the present.

So no, that one doesn't work either.

C says, our local imam is leading the prayers, which is saying it's happening in the present.

So that is the correct active voice version.

We've had to maintain that sense of it happening in the present.

Really well done if you managed to spot that.

Now let's practise a little bit more.

I wonder if you can convert each sentence into the opposite voice and say what the new voice is.

So some of these sentences are in the passive voice and some are in the active.

You are going to make it the opposite and decide which voice is being used in your new sentence.

Is it the active or the passive voice? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, great effort, let's have a look.

So in A we've said, the argument was caused by Jacob.

That's the passive voice, so we're gonna make Jacob the subject and say, Jacob caused the argument, and that's in the active voice.

B says, the secretary gave me the letter.

Now, this one might have tricked you, because me is the object in that sentence, not the letter.

So I need to put me as the subject in the passive voice.

I would say, I was given the letter by the secretary, and that is the passive voice now.

C says, Alex took my temperature.

So here my temperature is the object, let's make it the subject in the passive voice and say, my temperature was taken by Alex.

That's now in the passive, great job if you've managed to do all three of those, well done.

So let's do our final task for this lesson.

I'm going to show you some sentences, which might be in the passive voice or the active voice.

I want you to convert each sentence to the opposite voice from the one it's currently written in, and then label the new voice.

So here are sentences, remember there are a mixture of voices, you're gonna convert each one to the opposite and then decide which voice they're in now.

But don't forget, you're going to need to try and maintain the tense by looking carefully at those verbs that you're using.

Pause the video and have a go at this task.

Okay, let's have a look at how these sentences would look in the opposite voice.

A would say, the register has been taken by Mr. Martinez.

B would be, a local rabbi was giving the leavers' speech.

C would say, the traffic in the town centre is being stopped by a police officer.

D would say, the heavy snow has damaged the shed.

E would say, Miss O'Neill is taking her to the office.

F would be, finally, a decision is being made by the committee, and G would say, Izzy recommended the book to me.

Now let's check which voice these new sentences are in.

A has, has been taken by, as the verbs there, so that tells me it's the passive.

B is in the active, C is in the passive, is being stopped by is my clue there.

D is in the active, E is in the active too.

F says, is being made by, that sounds like the passive.

And then Izzy recommended the book to me, is definitely in the active voice.

Fantastic job, if you've managed to make those conversions and label up those sentences, you've done an amazing job, well done.

Okay, let's summarise our learning in this lesson, what a lot we covered.

We learned that when a subject is doing a verb to an object, we call this the active voice.

And we can change the active voice to the passive voice by making that old object the new subject.

And when the verb is done to a subject, it's called the passive voice, and it's formed using that auxiliary verb and a past tense form of the main verb.

And we've learned that we can convert sentences between the active and the passive voice depending on what we want to emphasise.

Really well done for completing this lesson, you've done a fantastic job.

I'd love you to go away now and see when you're reading books and when you're writing your own writing, can you spot how we use the passive voice to emphasise different things in our sentences? I'd love if you can see if you can spot some examples of that.

Well done, and I hope to see you again in a future lesson, goodbye.

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