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In a passive sentence, the agent (the doer of the action) start learning
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may or may not be mentioned.
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The press follows him everywhere. start learning
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He's followed everywhere by the press.
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The police are monitoring his emails. active, present continuous start learning
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His emails are being monitored by the police. passive. present continuous
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Fire destroyed the building. start learning
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The building was destroyed by the fire.
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Someone's eaten my sandwich. start learning
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My sandwich has been eaten.
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start learning
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I don't like people criticising me. start learning
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I don't like being criticised.
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The organisers want people to give feedback. active, infinitive with to start learning
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The organisers want to be given feedback. passive, infinitive with to
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The company has apologised for losing email details of hundreds of its customers. The details were left on a train by a member of staff. In the second sentence the writer uses the passive to keep the focus of the text on the email details and not on the person who left them. start learning
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Use the passive to emphasise the main focus of a text or sentence.
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A man's been arrested on suspicion of murder. start learning
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Use the passive when the agent is obvious
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I hate being watched when I'm practising Tai Chi. start learning
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Use the passive when the agent is not important
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I'm being sent a large number of spam emails these days. start learning
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Use the passive when the agent is unknown.
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The issue is discussed later in this paper. No survivors have been found in the disaster. start learning
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In more formal texts (e.g. academic writing, scientific reports) and certain text types (e.g. some newspapers articles, radio/TV news)
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All complaints will be taken seriously. start learning
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to create a distance between the agent and the action, for example to avoid responsability
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It is said / believed / reported / thought / understood ... that... It is reported that a shockingly large proportion of the world population is out of work. start learning
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In formal writing this construction is often used:
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