AE. Using the passive Er IPs | The government has published report today. active: focus onthe government) A report has been published by the government today. (passive: focus ona report) ‘We often use passive verbs: * when the agent (the person or thing that performs the action) is not known: ly house was broken into only last week, + when the agent is ‘people in general The details can be found at the back of the report. (= anyone can find these details) + when the agent is unimportant, ois obvio (= the agent is clearly the police) + when we don't want o say who the agent is: t may be that some minor mistakes were made in collecting the Figures, (= she might not want to say who was responsible for the mistakes) *+ to describe procedures or processes focusing on what was done rather than who did it: The figures were collected over a ten-year period, ‘+ to avoid repeating the agent in a description or narrative: The police have made good use of CCTV. It's been introduced into many city centres. rather than The police have made good use of CCTV. The police have introduced it into many city centres In informal contexts we often use active sentences with a subject such as peopl, somebody/someone, something ‘they or you even when we do not know who the agent is. In more formal contexts we often use a passive t> avoid mentioning an agent: People are seeing less graffiti in city centres. or more formally Less graffi s being seen Some verbs describing states (eg. have, become, seem) are not usually made passive 2ther countries have a similar policy. (not A-similar polieyishad-by other countvies) However, other verbs describing states can be passive (eg. intend, know, own): Our latest poster campaign Is intended to reassure people much higher proportion of offenders have been arrested, 12> Active and passive verb forms Compare these passive forms of active verb patterns. active They started to keep records ten ye Records started to be kept only ten years go. This igure is expected to fall as they start using This igure is expected to fall rapidly as new ‘new technology to trace stolen phones. technology starts being used to wace stolen mobiles They made ther repair the damage People found guilty of vandalism are made to repair the damage they've caused, | More people were caught selling drugs The police caught ther selling drugs We expect the figure to fall rapidly. This figure is expected to fall rapidly. We want the crime rate to fall stil further Some verbs in this pattern have no passive: | (Pt The-csimerote is wanted to falstil further) 1271B ernie Perfect passive forms are also possible: Wore people claim to have been the victims of crime. More people have ‘been caught selling drugs this year than ever before, This igure Is expected to have fallen by next year ‘Most passives with modal verbs are formed with modal + be + past participle or modal + have been + past participle: The reason for this can be found in the huge increase in the number of mobile phones Some of the fall might have been caused by lower rates of reporting. (past) PID) Passive forms of verbs with two objects | was delighted when our crime statistics department gave me the figures (active) | | was delighted when I was given the figures by our rine Statistics Department. (passive) or | | was delighted wien the figures were given (to) me by our Crime Staistis Departament. (passive) Verbs followed by object + complement in the active have one passive form: ‘Attitudes have changed significantly since Peter Miles was appointed head of the police service. (0% Get + past participle; get/have + object + past participle ‘ts true that more people get mugged today than they did ten years ayo oF .. are mugged .. People think more carefully about committing a crime if they know they might get caught. OF »- might be caught. Particularly in speech, we can use get + past participle instead of be + past participle. Get + past participle is most commonly used to talk about unwelcome events (e.g. get mugged), but we can also Use it with postive events: when we got elected ten yeurs ogo We don't use get + past participle with verbs describing states He was known to be a highly effective senior police officer. (not He got-known-trbe «.) ‘We can use ether have + object + past participle or (more informally) ge + object + past participle: + t0 ay that someone arranges for someone else to do something for ther Virtually every person in my road has had/got a burglar alarm fitted recently © to say that something unexpected, and usually unpleasant, happens to someone: {had my TV and stereo taken. of very informally got my TV and stereo taken ‘We use reflexive pronoun with get ro suggest that the subjects responsible for ther actions. People will think more carefully if they know they're pong to yet themselves arrested 128 atest [ER co A Acupune 3,000 ye alongsid Cae ‘mind (4) os flow of be the li (collect) channels that dise of GL cold or ¢ a2) | The first Stockho oes transmit 4) 6) could (6 oon their OF cours 8) research exposur a0) _ an, ‘commurrnepassie 18 ELE Complete these texts with the appropriate form, active or passive, ofthe verb, A | Acupuncure (has been pacised (practise) in China forever 3,000 years, and today it (2) a — (widely use) | longside conventional medicine. In traditional Chinese medicine, ‘no symptom O_. (view) in isolation. Instead, the body and the | mind (4) ... (evaluate) together. The goal of acupuncture 4 6. -_ (be) to create harmony in the body by restoring the flow of Qi (pronounced ‘chee'). This (6) _ be the life foreeinvoived in all body functions. Qi (7) =e | oltect inthe organs and (8) __.. (travel) through energy channels in the body. Acupuncturists @) a (believe) that diseases (10) —— (occur) when the circulation FofQay (prevent), whether by injuries, heat, cold or other factors. By redirecting the flow of Qi. acupuncture can (a) (help) cure disease (consider) to ame sao | The first mobile phones (1) Ceonstructy in | Stockholm in the 1950s ~ but were not very mobile! They could only i) - (use) in ears because the receiver and transmitter (3) (weigh) over 40 kilos and had to a) (carry) in the boot. But technology (6) (advance) so quickly that by the 1990s mobiles could (6) (hold) inthe hand and people talking on their mobiles (7) (become) a familiar sight Of course, not everyone welcomed mobiles, and in the mid-1990s their use ®______(ban)in many schools. Even recent | research which (9) —____ (suggest) that protonged exposure to emissions from mobiles might be a health hazard Ne nee (not discourage thet and analysts now (y__" (predict) that by 2025, 95% of all electronic | communication (12) —_ (conduct) by mobile phone. 19 boas