The Passive Exercise

This exercise tests understanding of long, short, finite and non-finite passives

Use this exercise to test your understanding of long, short, finite and non-finite passives.

Identify the passive or active construction in each sentence or underlined part of a sentence and copy the words active, passive, long, short, finite or infinite into the answer window. For example:

"My homework was eaten by the dog." requires the answer: long finite passive. It is a long passive because there is an agent (by-phrase; by the dog); it is finite because the verb is finite See the glossary definition ; it is in the passive voice (was eaten).

You can get some feedback on each correct answer by clicking on the red square. Make sure you have consulted the passive page, the passive examples page, the non-finite passives page and the examples in the glossary (search for 'passive').

The examples in this exercise are all taken from authentic texts (Ashley 2019), (Doddridge 2022), (Dorrian and Whittaker 2020), (Guijarro-Clarke and Paps 2020), (Helms 2019), Helms 2022), (Jordan 2019), (Poropat 2020), (Sabolova 2020), (Temple 2020). You can consult them by searching the bibliography .