Advanced passive structures: all forms— C1 Grammar Exercises

Published March 23, 2026

Exercises:

Exercise 1 — Gap Fill Select

Choose the correct option to complete each sentence.

By next year, the new highway by the government for over a decade.

The documents before the meeting started, so everyone was prepared.

The results by the research team every month to track progress.

The proposal already approved by the manager by the time he arrived.

The new safety regulations strictly enforced by the authorities.

The CEO to address the conference next week.

The complaints carefully before any action is taken.

The project by the team since last month and is expected to finish soon.

The instructions clearly before the experiment started.

The proposal by the committee before being sent to the board.

Exercises:

Compare three ways of reporting the same event:

Someone has stolen the manuscript.
The manuscript has been stolen.
The manuscript is believed to have been stolen by an insider.

The third version distances the speaker from the claim, identifies the agent only as far as evidence allows, and packages a reported judgement inside a passive infinitive. This is the kind of work advanced passives do in formal English: they manage information flow, responsibility, and register in ways the active voice cannot match.

At C1, the question is no longer how to form the passive; it's which passive structure to choose, and why. This page covers the full inventory: passives across every tense, passives with modals and perfect modals, passive infinitives and gerunds, reporting passives, have/get something done, and the double-object structures that catch out even confident learners.

The passive across all tenses

Every English tense has a passive form, built on a single template: a tensed form of be plus the past participle. The auxiliary changes; the participle does not.

Subject (receiver) + be (in the right tense) + past participle + (by + agent)

Tense	Active	Passive
Present simple	They publish the report annually.	The report is published annually.
Present continuous	They are translating the novel.	The novel is being translated.
Present perfect	They have signed the agreement.	The agreement has been signed.
Present perfect continuous	They have been investigating the case.	The case has been being investigated. (grammatical but avoided)
Past simple	A junior officer signed the order.	The order was signed by a junior officer.
Past continuous	They were repairing the bridge.	The bridge was being repaired.
Past perfect	They had warned the residents.	The residents had been warned.
Future simple	They will announce the results tomorrow.	The results will be announced tomorrow.
Future perfect	They will have completed the works by June.	The works will have been completed by June.
Going to	They are going to demolish the wing.	The wing is going to be demolished.

Some tenses are grammatically possible but stylistically avoided. Has been being investigated stacks too many auxiliaries; native writers rephrase it as The investigation has been ongoing or The case has been under investigation. The same applies to future continuous (will be being repaired) and future perfect continuous passives.

Passives with modals and perfect modals

Modal verbs take the passive easily. The pattern is modal + be + past participle for present/future reference, and modal + have been + past participle for past reference. Perfect modals are heavily used in formal writing to express judgements about completed events.

Present/future: modal + be + past participle
Past reference: modal + have been + past participle

Function	Present / future	Past reference
Obligation	The forms must be submitted by Friday.	The forms should have been submitted last week.
Possibility	The data may be released next month.	The leak may have been caused by a contractor.
Deduction	That noise must be coming from upstairs. (active here)	The decision must have been taken before the meeting.
Ability / permission	The file can be downloaded from the portal.	The error could have been avoided with proper checks.

Passive infinitives and gerunds

The passive isn't limited to finite verbs. Infinitives and gerunds have passive forms too, and you need them whenever the subject of the verb is the receiver of the action rather than the doer.

Passive infinitive: to be + past participle (to be told)
Perfect passive infinitive: to have been + past participle (to have been told)
Passive gerund: being + past participle (being told)
Perfect passive gerund: having been + past participle (having been told)

Passive infinitive

Use it after verbs that take a to-infinitive (want, expect, hope, need, seem, appear) when the subject is the receiver of the action.

Nobody wants to be criticised in public.
The package needs to be signed for on delivery.
She seems to have been promoted recently. (perfect passive — action before "seems")

Passive gerund

Use it after verbs and prepositions that take an -ing form (enjoy, avoid, resent, remember, before, after, without, instead of) when the subject is the receiver.

He resents being treated like a junior.
The minister denied having been informed of the breach.
After being warned twice, she left the building.

Reporting passives: It is said that… and X is said to…

When you want to report information without committing to its source, two passive patterns are available. They are the workhorses of journalism, academic writing, and diplomatic prose.

Pattern 1 (impersonal): It + is/was + reporting verb (past participle) + that-clause
Pattern 2 (personal): Subject + is/was + reporting verb (past participle) + to-infinitive

The reporting verbs that work in both patterns include say, believe, think, know, report, claim, allege, understand, consider, expect, rumour.

Active	Impersonal passive	Personal passive
People say he is a fraud.	It is said that he is a fraud.	He is said to be a fraud.
Experts believe she wrote it.	It is believed that she wrote it.	She is believed to have written it.
The police think the suspect fled abroad.	It is thought that the suspect fled abroad.	The suspect is thought to have fled abroad.

Tense match for the personal passive. The reporting verb and the infinitive carry tense separately. If the reported event is at the same time as the reporting, use to + base form (is said to be). If the reported event is earlier, use the perfect infinitive (is said to have been). This rule is identical to the time-frame rule in reported speech.

Causative passives: have/get something done

This structure says that you arrange for someone else to do something — you don't do it yourself. It is technically a causative, not a true passive, but it behaves like one and is grouped here because the object is the receiver of the action.

Subject + have / get + object + past participle

I'm having my flat redecorated next week. (I'm arranging it; someone else does the work)
She got her passport renewed in three days.
You should have your eyes tested.

The structure also covers experiences that happen to you — often unpleasant — with no agent of your own choosing.

They had their car stolen on the first night. (misfortune, not arrangement)
He had his proposal rejected by the board.

Have and get are mostly interchangeable in this structure, but get is more informal and often suggests effort or persistence: I finally got the car fixed. Have is preferred in formal writing and when describing routine arrangements.

Double-object verbs: two possible passives

Verbs that take two objects — give, send, offer, tell, show, teach, pay, promise, award — produce two possible passive sentences, depending on which object becomes the subject.

Active	Two passives
The committee awarded Mendez the prize.	Mendez was awarded the prize.	(person as subject — more common)
The committee awarded Mendez the prize.	The prize was awarded to Mendez.	(thing as subject — formal, often in citations)
They sent her a refund.	She was sent a refund.	(person-focused)
They sent her a refund.	A refund was sent to her.	(thing-focused)

The person-as-subject passive is more frequent in modern English and sounds more natural. The thing-as-subject version is common in formal contexts where the item is the focus: The medal was presented to the runner-up.

Choosing the passive: register and information flow

Advanced learners often know how to form passives but underuse them or pick the wrong one. Use the passive deliberately when:

Function	Example
The agent is unknown or irrelevant	The window had been forced open. (We don't know by whom.)
The agent is obvious	The driver was arrested at the scene. (Obviously by the police.)
You want to avoid blame	Mistakes were made during the audit. (No agent named.)
You want to keep the topic in subject position	The novel was published in 1872 and translated into nine languages within a decade.
You want to push new or heavy information to the end	The award was presented by the longest-serving member of the academy.
Formal, scientific or bureaucratic register	The samples were heated to 80°C and analysed by mass spectrometry.

Common mistakes

Forgetting be in passive infinitives and gerunds. The passive marker is be / being, not just the participle.

He hopes selected for the team.
He hopes to be selected for the team.
She avoided seen by the journalists.
She avoided being seen by the journalists.

Wrong time frame in the personal passive. If the reported event happened before the reporting, you need a perfect infinitive.

She is believed to write the article last year.
She is believed to have written the article last year.

Passivising an intransitive verb. Only transitive verbs (those with a direct object) can be made passive. Verbs like happen, arrive, exist, occur, die, fall, disappear cannot.

An accident was happened on the bridge.
An accident happened on the bridge.

Wrong structure with have something done. The object goes between have and the participle.

I had repaired my car last week. (This means I repaired it myself.)
I had my car repaired last week. (Someone else did the work.)

Stacked be-forms. Avoid the present perfect continuous passive and similar over-built tenses. Rephrase.

The building has been being renovated for two years.
The building has been under renovation for two years.

Confusing by and with. Use by for the agent (the doer) and with for the instrument or material.

The letter was written with the secretary.
The letter was written by the secretary, with a fountain pen.

Dropping to in the personal passive. The pattern is to + infinitive, never the bare infinitive.

He is said be living in Madrid.
He is said to be living in Madrid.

Treating born as active. To be born is always passive in English — no active equivalent exists in this meaning.

She borned in 1990.
She was born in 1990.

Passive vs active: when each one wins

	Active	Passive
Focus	On the doer of the action.	On the receiver of the action or on the action itself.
Register	Direct, conversational, journalistic narrative.	Formal, scientific, bureaucratic, diplomatic.
Sentence rhythm	Shorter, more dynamic.	Longer; useful for end-weight.
Example	The chef burned the sauce.	The sauce was burned.
Avoid when…	The doer is unknown, obvious, or deliberately suppressed.	The agent is the most important information; overuse drains prose of energy.

Overusing the passive is a classic feature of weak academic prose — strings of was conducted, was observed, was determined. Style guides for scientific writing now recommend the active where it doesn't obscure the science. Choose deliberately; don't default to the passive because it sounds formal.

This topic builds on passive voice at B2. For passive structures that interact with conditional and unreal patterns, see mixed conditionals.

Quick summary

The passive template is always be + past participle; only the auxiliary changes across tenses.
Use perfect passive infinitives (to have been done) for actions earlier than the main verb.
Reporting passives come in two flavours: impersonal (It is said that…) and personal (She is said to be…).
Have/get something done means you arrange the action — or it happens to you.
Double-object verbs allow two passives; the person-as-subject version is more natural in modern English.
Use by for the agent and with for the instrument or material.
Don't default to the passive in formal writing — choose it for a reason: unknown agent, topic continuity, end-weight, or impersonality.

Menu