Training Exercises

Ex 1. Change active forms to passive in the following sentences. Do not change the tense forms.

1. The milkman brings the milk to my door, but the postman leaves the letter in the hall.

2. In future, perhaps, they won’t bring letters to the houses, and we shall have to collect them from the Post Office.

3. People steal things from supermarkets every day.

4. Normally men sweep this street every day, but nobody swept it last week.

5. Someone turned on the light in the hall and opened the door.

6. Women clean this office in the evening, when the staff have left, they clean the upstairs offices between seven and eight in the morning.

7. We never saw him in the dining-room.

8. They are repairing my piano at the moment.

9. Has anyone posted my parcel?

10. We have sold all our copies but we have ordered more.

11. They will do this work in time, they promised to.

12. They will have done this work by the 1^st of September, they promised.

13. I couldn’t give him a lift. They were repairing my car at the moment.

14. This tour is very expensive. You will spend a lot of money.

Ex 2. Put the verbs into the correct form, Present Simple or Past Simple, Active or Passive.

1. It’s a big factory. Five hundred people …are employed … (employ) there.

2. Water …… (cover) most of the Earth’s surface.

3. Most of the Earth’s surface …… (cover) by water.

4. The park gates …… (lock) at 6:30 p.m. every evening.

5. The letter …… (post) a week ago and it …… (arrive) yesterday.

6. The boat …… (sink) quickly but fortunately everybody …… (rescue).

7. Ron’s parents …… (die) when he was very young. He and his sister …… (bring) up by their grandparents.

8. I was born in London but I …… (grow) up in the north of England.

9. While I was on holiday, my camera …… (steal) from my hotel room.

10. While I was on holiday, my camera …… (disappear) from my hotel room.

11. Why …… (Sue/resign) from her job? Didn’t she enjoy it?

12. Why …… (Bill/sack) from his job? What did he do wrong?

13. The company is not independent. It …… (own) by a much larger company.

14. I saw an accident last night. Somebody …… (call) an ambulance but nobody …… (injure) so the ambulance …… (not/need).

15. Where …… (these photographs/take)? In London? …… (you/take) them?

Ex 3. Make sentences from the words in brackets. Sometimes the verb is active, sometimes passive.

1. There’s somebody behind us. (I think/we/follow) … I think we’re being followed.

2. This room looks different. (you/paint)? … Have you painted it?

3. My car has disappeared. (it/steal)! It …… .

4. My umbrella has disappeared. (somebody/take) Somebody …… .

5. Tom gets a higher salary now. (he/promote) …… .

6. Ann can’t use her office at the moment. (it/redecorate) …… .

7. The photocopier broke down yesterday, but now it’s OK. (it/work/again; it/repair) ……. .

8. The police have found the people they were looking for. (two people/arrest/last night) …… .

9. A tree was lying across the road. (it/blow down/in the storm) …… .

10. The man next door disappeared six months ago. (nobody/see/since then) …… .

11. I was mugged on my way home a few nights ago. (you/ever/mug) …… ?

Ex 4. Open the brackets using the verbs in the Future Simple and the Future Perfect of the Passive. Add suitable adverbial phrases or clauses.

Model:

The article (to be read) aloud.

The article will be read aloud at the next lesson.

The article will have been read aloud before it is discussed.

1. The luggage (to be packed).

2. The torn trousers (to be patched).

3. The vegetables (to be prepared).

4. The fish (to be stuffed).

5. The fruit (to be stewed).

6. The dough (to be kneaded).

Ex 5. Put the verbs in the correct form.

1. I’ve collected all the documents that …… (need) for the house sale. Can you take them to the lawyer’s office to ……(sign)?

2. Look here, this is a secret. Come into the garden where we ……(not / overhear).

3. If you hadn’t been so late for work, you ……(sack).

4. This office is very inefficient. The telephone ……(never / answer) promptly, no proper records ……(keep), and, worst of all, no reports ……(written) for weeks.

5. I was so worried about my garden while I was in hospital, but I have very good neighbours. When I got home I could see that the vegetables ……(water) every day and grass ……(cut) regularly.

6. Can you come to the police station? The man who ……(suspect) of stealing your wallet …… (arrest), and …… (question) at the moment. The police hope he ……(identify), either by you or another witness.

7. We had hoped to see several famous paintings, but the gallery ……(re-organized) at the time of our visit and most of the really valuable works ……(move) for safe keeping.

Ex 6. Put the verbs into a suitable tense in the Passive.

Mary has just arrived home from work. Neil is already there.

MARY: Hi! I’m back. Sorry I’m late.

NEIL: Hello. What kept you?

MARY: I had to use the ring road and I (1) ……… (stick) in a traffic jam for forty minutes.

NEIL: Why didn’t you use the usual route?

MARY: Because the road (2) …… (close) until work on the access road to the new hospital (3) …… (complete).

NEIL: When is it due to (4) ……………………… (finish)?

MARY: Well, the access road (5) …… (open) by the Mayor next week, according to the newspaper, and the Health Minister (6) …… (invite) to open the hospital on the same day, but they don’t know yet whether she’s definitely coming.

NEIL: A lot of money (7) ……………… (waste) if she doesn’t come.

MARY: Why’s that?

NEIL: Haven’t you seen all those rose bushes that (8) ……… (plant) round the hospital?

MARY: So? They’ll be lovely for the patients.

NEIL: But the patients won’t be able to see them, because they’re round the entrance, and the wards look out in the other direction. A lot of people protested about it, but all their complaints (9) ……… (ignore) until it was too late.

MARY: If they had money to spare, it (10) …….. (spend) on facilities for patients, not on making the front look pretty for the Minister.

NEIL: Absolutely. It’s typical of this local council. They (11) ………….. (elect) to save money, but they do just the opposite.

MARY: Perhaps they (12) ………………… (throw) out at the next election.

NEIL: I hope so. Now, are you ready for supper?

Ex 7. Put all types of questions to the following statements.

1. Our students are offered a wide choice of work all over the country.

2. Listen! An article about American college graduates is being broadcast.

3. Since the Great October Socialist Revolution hundreds of thousands of college graduates have been given work (jobs) in their special fields.

4. Lectures on medical topics are always listened to with great attention.

5. Nowadays much attention is being paid to the problem of bringing science closer to life.

6. The use of the atom in medicine has been much spoken of lately.

Ex 8. You are interested in your groupmates’ interests, studies, their progress at the University, their life as a whole. Ask them 7-8 questions (The use of Passive is obligatory).

Note 4. Иногда в пассивном залоге употребляется вспомогательный глагол “to get” вместо глагола “to be” в разговорной речи. “To get” можно употребить в следующих случаях:

1. когда говорящий имеет в виду, что какое-то событие происходит незапланированно, вдруг, неожиданно.

E.g. Our dog got run over by a car.

My friend got lost in the forest. There was a fight at the party, but nobody got hurt.

(Нельзя употребить “to get” с глаголами, которые не выражают перехода из одного состояния в другое.)

Нельзя!!! Jill is liked by everyone.