Active and Passive Voice – NDA English Notes

1. What Is Voice?

Voice is a grammatical property of verbs that signals the relationship between the subject and the action. Every finite verb clause has a voice.

Voice	Subject’s Role	Structure	Example
Active	Subject performs the action (the agent)	Subject + Verb + Object	“The chairman adjourned the meeting.”
Passive	Subject receives the action (the patient)	Subject + Auxiliary (be) + Past Participle (+ by agent)	“The meeting was adjourned by the chairman.”

In the active voice, the agent (the doer) is the grammatical subject. In the passive voice, the patient (the receiver of the action) is the grammatical subject. The agent may appear in a “by” phrase or be omitted entirely when unimportant or unknown.

★  IMPORTANT Before choosing active or passive, ask one question: Is the grammatical subject performing the action or receiving it?   Performing → active.  Receiving → passive.   Every voice error in this chapter reduces to a failure to answer this question correctly.

The Four-Step Diagnostic Test

Step 1: Identify the grammatical subject of the clause.

Step 2: Identify the action (the verb).

Step 3: Ask: Is the subject performing this action, or is the action happening to the subject?

Step 4: Performing → active voice. Receiving → passive voice. Apply the appropriate structure.

“The chairman adjourned the meeting.”

Subject: “The chairman.” Action: adjourning. Is the chairman performing this? YES → Active.

“The meeting adjourned by the chairman.”  [NDA 2015-I: Error]

Subject: “The meeting.” Action: adjourning. Is the meeting performing this? NO → Passive required.

Passive form: “The meeting WAS adjourned by the chairman.”

“Scales have well-formulated.”  [NDA 2015-I: Error]

Subject: “Scales.” Action: formulating. Do scales formulate themselves? NO → Passive required.

Passive form: “Scales ARE well-formulated.”

2. Passive Formation Across All Six Tenses

The passive is formed by combining the appropriate form of the auxiliary verb “be” with the past participle of the main verb. The form of “be” changes with the tense; the past participle remains constant. Six tenses are essential; four of these are directly confirmed in NDA papers.

Tense	Active Form	Passive Form	Passive Formula	NDA Status
Simple Present	“The chairman adjourns the meeting.”	“The meeting is adjourned by the chairman.”	is/am/are + pp	Standard syllabus
Simple Past	“The chairman adjourned the meeting.”	“The meeting was adjourned by the chairman.”	was/were + pp	NDA 2015-I
Present Continuous	“The waiter is serving the food.”	“The food is being served by the waiter.”	is/am/are being + pp	NDA 2016-II
Past Continuous	“The soldiers were guarding the prisoners.”	“The prisoners were being guarded by the soldiers.”	was/were being + pp	NDA 2014-I
Present Perfect	“The company has recruited four hundred engineers.”	“Four hundred engineers have been recruited by the company.”	has/have been + pp	NDA 2025-II
Future Simple	“The chairman will adjourn the meeting.”	“The meeting will be adjourned by the chairman.”	will be + pp	Standard syllabus
Modal	“The engineers will have to complete an internship.”	“An internship will have to be completed by the engineers.”	modal + be + pp	NDA 2025-II

The continuous passive (“is being done”, “was being done”) is the form students most frequently produce incorrectly, omitting either “being” or the auxiliary. Both elements are required. “The food is being served”: remove either “is” or “being” and the form breaks.

Converting Active to Passive: The Standard Three Steps

Step 1: The object of the active verb becomes the subject of the passive verb.

Step 2: The main verb changes to: [appropriate form of “be”] + [past participle].

Step 3: The subject of the active verb becomes the agent in a “by” phrase (or is omitted if unnecessary).

Active:  “The committee has reviewed the proposal.”

Passive:  “The proposal has been reviewed by the committee.”

Active:  “They were guarding the prisoners.”

Passive:  “The prisoners were being guarded by them.”

Active:  “The company has recruited four hundred engineers.”

Passive:  “Four hundred engineers have been recruited by the company.”  [NDA 2025-II]

3. Active → Passive Conversion: Standard Rules

Agent Retention and Omission

The “by + agent” phrase is optional in passive sentences. It is retained when the agent is important or identifies a specific doer. It is omitted when the agent is unknown, obvious from context, or unimportant.

Correct: “The meeting was adjourned by the Chairman.”  agent important: who did it matters

Correct:  “English is spoken worldwide.”  agent omitted: speaker is the general population

Correct:  “He was arrested.”  agent omitted: police is contextually obvious

Correct:  “Four hundred engineers have been recruited.”  agent may be omitted if company is understood

Object → Subject: Pronoun Changes

When an active object pronoun becomes the passive subject, it changes to the nominative (subject) form.

Active Object Pronoun	Passive Subject Pronoun	Example
me	I	“He saw me.” → “I was seen by him.”
him	he	“She praised him.” → “He was praised by her.”
her	she	“They appointed her.” → “She was appointed by them.”
us	we	“He helped us.” → “We were helped by him.”
them	they	“She invited them.” → “They were invited by her.”

Subject → Agent: Pronoun Changes

When the active subject pronoun becomes the passive agent, it changes to the accusative (object) form, placed after “by.”

Active Subject Pronoun	Passive Agent (by + pronoun)	Example
I	by me	“I wrote the report.” → “The report was written by me.”
he	by him	“He adjourned the meeting.” → “The meeting was adjourned by him.”
she	by her	“She completed the task.” → “The task was completed by her.”
we	by us	“We appointed the committee.” → “The committee was appointed by us.”
they	by them	“They laughed at his warnings.” → “His warnings were laughed at by them.”

4. Missing Auxiliary: The Most Detectable Passive Error

The most fundamental passive construction error is using the past participle of a verb without its required auxiliary. This error is highly detectable in Spotting Errors questions because the presence of a “by + agent” phrase in the sentence strongly signals that a passive construction is intended: and the absence of the auxiliary then becomes the identifiable error.

★  IMPORTANT The passive is NEVER just the past participle. “Was adjourned”, “were being guarded”, “has been recruited”: the auxiliary is always required.   A past participle alone is either an active past tense verb or an adjective. Without the auxiliary, there is no passive.

NDA 2015-I: Spotting Errors:

“The meeting adjourned abruptly/(a) by the Chairman after/(b) about three hours of deliberation./(c) No error./(d)”

Error: Part (a): “adjourned abruptly”

Diagnostic: Subject = “The meeting.” Does the meeting adjourn itself? No. The Chairman (in the “by” phrase) is the agent. The meeting receives the action. → Passive required. Auxiliary missing.

Correct: “The meeting was adjourned abruptly by the Chairman…”  [NDA 2015-I]

The “by the Chairman” phrase is the key diagnostic signal. Whenever you see “by + agent” in a sentence, ask: is there a passive auxiliary before the verb? If not → the auxiliary is the missing element.

This error is specifically listed in the CIF as Tier-1 misconception: students who know that passive uses the past participle form sometimes omit the auxiliary entirely, treating the past participle as sufficient. The rule: past participle alone cannot form a passive. The full structure “auxiliary (be in correct tense) + past participle” is always required.

5. Wrong Verb Form: Active Used Where Passive Is Required

A related error: the sentence requires a passive construction but the student has written an active verb form. The diagnostic test (“Is the subject performing or receiving the action?”) must be applied. When the answer is “receiving,” the passive structure is mandatory, and any active form is incorrect.

NDA 2015-I: Sentence Improvement:

“But in all these cases conversion from one scale to another is easy because scales have well-formulated.”

Underlined Part: “have well-formulated”

Options: (a) can be well-formulated  (b) are well-formulated  (c) well-formulated  (d) No improvement

Answer: (b) are well-formulated  [NDA 2015-I]

Diagnostic: Subject = “scales.” Do scales formulate themselves? No. External processes formulate scales. Scales receive the formulation. → Passive required.

“Have well-formulated” = active present perfect: wrong voice. The relationship is permanent/general fact → present simple passive.

“Are well-formulated” = present simple passive: correct.

(a) “can be well-formulated”: introduces a modal of possibility, changing meaning.

(c) “well-formulated”: adjective only; no auxiliary; incomplete construction.

(b) “are well-formulated”: correct passive form for general truth about scales.

6. Active → Passive Conversion: Complex Sentences

NDA 2025-II introduced conversion questions involving structurally complex sentences, those containing embedded relative clauses and compound predicates with modal auxiliaries. These are the most challenging question types confirmed in the chapter and represent the current highest difficulty ceiling of NDA voice testing.

Type A: Embedded Relative Clause in the Subject

When the active subject contains a relative clause in which the subject is also the object of the relative clause (“the king who the people loved”), passive transformation must address both the main clause AND the embedded relative clause. The main subject becomes the passive main subject; the relative clause must also be inverted to preserve meaning.

Rule: “The king [who the people loved] built the castle five centuries ago.”

Step 1:  Identify main clause object → “the castle” becomes passive subject.

Step 2:  Identify relative clause structure → “the people loved [the king]” → embedded passive: “the king who was loved by the people.”

Step 3:  Combine → “The castle was built [by the king who was loved by the people] five centuries ago.”

NDA 2025-II: Active → Passive Conversion:

Active: “The king who the people loved built the castle five centuries ago.”

The traps in the distractor options:

Incorrect: “…by the king who loved the people…”  reverses the relative clause (who loved whom?)

Incorrect: “…by the people who were loved by the king…”  inverts the logical relationship entirely

Correct:  “The castle was built by the king who was loved by the people five centuries ago.”

Rule: “The king who the people loved” = the people loved the king (king = object). → In the passive relative clause: “the king who WAS LOVED by the people.”

The direction of love must be preserved: people love king → king was loved by people.

Type B: Compound Sentence: Selective Clause Transformation

In compound or complex sentences with multiple clauses, passive transformation applies only to the clauses where the subject receives the action. Clauses where the subject performs the action remain in the active voice. Applying passive to every clause mechanically produces grammatically or logically wrong sentences.

Rule: Apply the four-step diagnostic test to each clause independently. Transform only the clauses where the grammatical subject receives the action. Leave untransformed the clauses where the grammatical subject performs the action.

NDA 2025-II: Active → Passive Conversion:

Active: “The company has recruited four hundred engineers who will have to complete an internship for three weeks.”

Clause 1: “The company has recruited four hundred engineers.”

→ Subject: “the company” → Does the company perform? YES → transform. → Passive: “Four hundred engineers have been recruited by the company.”

Clause 2: “who will have to complete an internship for three weeks.”

→ Subject: “who” (= the engineers) → Do the engineers complete? YES, they do. → Engineers are the agents of completing. Keep active: “who will have to complete…”

Correct passive: “Four hundred engineers have been recruited by the company who will have to complete an internship for three weeks.”

ERROR confusion: passivising Clause 2 → “…an internship…will have to be completed”, which changes who bears the internship obligation. Leave active clauses active.

Complex Case	Rule	NDA Paper
Embedded relative clause: subject is the object of the relative clause	Transform the relative clause independently alongside the main clause. Preserve the logical direction of the relative clause.	NDA 2025-II
Compound sentence: some clauses passive, some active	Apply the diagnostic test to each clause separately. Transform only agent-receiver clauses; leave performer clauses in active voice.	NDA 2025-II
Modal auxiliary in active clause	For passive with modals: modal + be + past participle. “will have to complete” → “will have to be completed” (only if the clause is being passivised)	NDA 2025-II context

7. Prepositional Verb Passives

Prepositional verbs are verb + preposition combinations that function as a single lexical unit: “laugh at”, “object to”, “look after”, “refer to”, “deal with.” When these verbs are passivised, the preposition is not dropped. It stays attached to the verb and travels with it into the passive construction. This is confirmed directly in NDA 2026-I.

★ IMPORTANT In prepositional verb passives, the preposition is RETAINED with the verb. Do not drop it. “Laughed at → were laughed at.”  “Objected to → were objected to.” The preposition belongs to the verb unit.

NDA 2026-I: Pair-Matching Verification (Pair I: Confirmed Correct):

Active: “They laughed at his warnings and objected to all his proposals.”

Passive: “His warnings were laughed at and his proposals were objected to.”

“Laughed at” → passive: “were laughed at”: “at” is retained.

“Objected to” → passive: “were objected to”: “to” is retained.

This pair was confirmed CORRECT in the NDA 2026-I pair-matching question.

The common error: “His warnings were laughed” (dropping “at”): wrong. The preposition is part of the lexical unit; removing it changes or destroys the verb.

Prepositional Verb	Active Example	Passive Form (Preposition Retained)	NDA Status
laugh at	“They laughed at his warnings.”	“His warnings were laughed at by them.”	NDA 2026-I
object to	“They objected to his proposals.”	“His proposals were objected to by them.”	NDA 2026-I
look after	“She looks after the children.”	“The children are looked after by her.”	Standard syllabus
refer to	“They referred the matter to the committee.”	“The matter was referred to the committee.”	Standard syllabus
deal with	“We must deal with this problem.”	“This problem must be dealt with.”	Standard syllabus
put up with	“Nobody can put up with such behaviour.”	“Such behaviour cannot be put up with.”	Standard syllabus
look up to	“Everyone looks up to her.”	“She is looked up to by everyone.”	Standard syllabus
call off	“They called off the match.”	“The match was called off by them.”	Standard syllabus

8. Imperative → Advisory Passive

Imperative sentences: commands and instructions: transform into passive using an advisory passive structure. The imperative does not have a grammatical subject (“you” is understood), so the passive cannot simply replace a subject. Instead, the advisory passive introduces an explicit “you” and expresses the command as an instruction or directive.

Positive imperative: “Open the door.”  →  “You are requested to open the door.”

Negative imperative: “Do not insult the weak.”  →  “You are advised not to insult the weak.”

The advisory words: advised, requested, directed, warned: choose a register:

advised  = formal guidance

requested  = polite request

warned  = strong caution

directed  = official instruction

NDA 2026-I: Pair-Matching Verification (Pair II):

Active (Negative Imperative): “Do not insult the weak.”

Passive (Advisory): “You are advised not to insult the weak.”

“Do not” + verb → “You are advised not to” + verb. The verb “insult” remains in the base form after “to.” The object “the weak” remains as the object of “insult.” This pair appeared in NDA 2026-I pair-matching format.

Imperative Form	Advisory Passive	Register
Do not insult the weak.  [NDA 2026-I]	“You are advised not to insult the weak.”	Formal advisory
Do not park here.	“You are warned not to park here.” / “Parking is not permitted here.”	Warning / Prohibition
Close the door.	“You are requested to close the door.”	Polite request
Submit the report by Friday.	“You are directed to submit the report by Friday.”	Official directive
Help the needy.	“The needy are to be helped.” / “You are advised to help the needy.”	Formal obligation
Do not shout in the library.	“You are requested not to shout in the library.”	Polite request

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