Grammar: passives 1

We use the passive for a number of reasons. One reason is when we don’t know, or we are not
interested in, who does an action. For example, Matt says:
I think you were given a brochure … at the conference.
The fact that Simon received the brochure is more important than who gave it to him.
To form the passive, we use:
The correct form of the verb to be + past participle of the main verb
Sometimes, we might want to add information about who is doing the action. We use by to do this:
It was set up by two postgraduate students.
Here are some examples of the passive from Matt's presentation:
The benefits hadn’t been explained to the teachers. (past perfect)
The opportunities in digital learning weren’t being properly exploited. (past continuous)
The company has been based in Manchester since its foundation. (present perfect)
Other examples of the passive could include:
The report will/won't be finished by Friday. (future simple)
The report will have been finished by now – the deadline was last week. (future perfect)
The report is being written at the moment. (present continuous)
The report was finished yesterday. (past simple)
The client report is usually written within a week. (present simple)