In the
reading passage, "Who are the Goodwill Ambassadors?", several sentences or
phrases have passive constructions:
"So many people were affected"/ "Someone was beaten"/ "...so many
people could be displaced"
We write sentences in the passive when telling the action is
more important than telling who performed the action.
The diagram below shows how a passive construction is formed.
Note
that the agent column is sometimes omitted because it is already
understood:
subject |
verb "to be" |
past participle |
agent (sometimes omitted) |
So many people |
were |
affected |
by the war. |
Someone |
was |
beaten |
by his enemy. |
So many people |
could be |
displaced |
by the emergency. |
The environment |
should be |
made |
secure. |
Note that the tense of the verb to be indicates the tense of the sentence.The mood of the verb to be can be modified by using a modal such as could or should.
Further Explanation of Grammar
Grammar exercise with Passives
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