PASSIVES

‘Passive’ refers to the voice of verbs in which the subject undergoes the action of the verb as opposed to ‘active voice.’

‘GET’ + OBJECT + PAST PARTICPLE

C1 English Grammar Profile point 35 in PASSIVES is defined as: ‘get’ + object + ‘-ed’ to talk about causing or instructing something to happen or to be done by somebody else, often informally For example: Now, as it happens, I do have some connections in the drilling business who might help get us started. listen Here are the other forms of ‘GET’: He got his friend fired by revealing their […]

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It can | could + be + said | argued | concluded | considered

The pronoun ‘it’ can be used where the subject is unclear at C1, and verbs such as ‘conclude’ are only used by C1 learners.  For example: It was concluded that it never existed. However, this post is about reporting with modal verbs. C1 point 208 in MODALITY is defined as: ‘can’ in passive reporting clauses in a more formal impersonal

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‘It is said that …’ (IT + passive)

Let’s take a look at an IELTS writing task 2 example with this grammar: It is argued that volunteering should be made a part of the school curriculum. In the above example, ‘is argued‘ forms the passive part.  The active form of this is probably: ‘People argue that…” In our example, ‘people’ is not important or maybe we don’t know who

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GET | HAVE + object + past participle

Here’s an example of someone or something causing something to happen to you while you are passive: All I can say is,  get ready to have your mind blown. listen ‘Proactive’ means ‘taking action by causing change and not only reacting to change when it happens.’  In this post related to causative verbs, we look at two different resources. In the English Grammar Profile

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present perfect simple passive affirmative

In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 27 in the category of PASSIVES is defined as:   present perfect simple passive affirmative Here’s an example from englishclass101.com: Traditionally, these meetings have been held Wednesday at noon, every other week. Here are 50 head verbs that go in the present perfect simple passive affirmative verb phrase from the iWeb corpus. 1

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BE + *WN word ending

After ‘BE’, a word ending with ‘wn’ is usually past participle. Some exceptions are ‘known’ (where it might be an adjective) ‘down’, ‘brown’, ‘well-known’ and ‘unknown’. 1 IS KNOWN  377649 Unfortunately, that is what is known as a conflict of interest. listen 2 ARE KNOWN  143646 3 IS (VBZ) SHOWN (VVN) 130843 4 BEEN SHOWN 110513 It has not been shown to the court‘s satisfaction  that these particular Africans fit that description.

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BE + -ught word ending

There are only a few in a hundred times that ought does not mark a past particple after a form of the ‘BE’ verb. 1 BE (VBI) BROUGHT (VVN) 83149 2 WAS (VBDZ) BROUGHT (VVN) 73072 3 IS (VBZ) THOUGHT (VVN) 64778 4 BE (VBI) TAUGHT (VVN) 43927 5 IS (VBZ) BROUGHT (VVN) 42006 6

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passive with two objects

The text discusses the complexities of English grammar, focusing on the category of passives and verbs that require two objects. It explains how these grammatical elements can indicate different CEFR levels and the importance of understanding direct and indirect objects. The text provides examples of these concepts, highlighting how the direct object is usually not a person, while the indirect object is a person and typically comes first in a sentence. The text also discusses different points at B2, A2, and B1 levels, and how they are defined in relation to these grammatical structures. Finally, it presents corpus research results from iWeb to illustrate these concepts in practice.

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