10 Rewrite the following passages in the passive.

A)

Some people saw a UFO in the sky above London last night. They reported it to the police. The army sent a helicopter to look at it more closely. The UFO shot the helicopter down and killed both men in it. People have given photographs of the UFO to the police. Experts are looking at them now.

B)

My uncle painted this picture. Someone has offered him a lot of money for it. He will deliver the painting tomorrow. When they give him the money he will tell them the truth. He painted it one night while he was sleepwalking!

C)

Our school is organizing a contest. The teachers will choose the best project about the environment. The students must include pictures and drawings in their projects. The students will also have to do all the writing themselves. The school will give the winner a set of encyclopaedias.

D)

Someone broke into a local jewellery shop yesterday. The owner had just locked up the shop when a robber with a gun threatened him. The robber told him to unlock the shop and give him all the diamonds in the safe. Then the robber tied him up. The police have organized a search for the robber. They hope they will find him in a few days. Doctors are treating the owner of the shop for shock.

Unit 7. Passive Voice: direct/indirect objects, prepositions in Passive, it is said that …, he is said to…, have something done

Direct/indirect objects:

When there are two objects in an active sentence, there are two possible active sentences and two possible passive sentences.

possibility 1: The professor gave the students the books.

possibility 2: The professor gave the books to the students.

There are two objects in each of the following sentences:

object 1 = indirect object: the students

object 2 = direct object: the books

An indirect object is very often a person, a direct object a thing. When a direct object is followed by an indirect one, we put to in front of the indirect object.

Study these verbs:

For example, give:

* We gave the police (indirect object) the information (direct object). (= We gave the information to the police.)

So it is possible to make two Passive sentences:

* The police were given the information. or The information was given to the police.

Other verbs which can have two objects are: ask offer pay show teach tell.

When we use these verbs in the passive, most often we begin with the person:

* I was offered the job but I refused it. (= they offered me the job)

* You will be given plenty of time to decide. (= we will give you plenty of time)

* Have you been shown the new machine? (= has anybody shown you ...?)

* The men were paid $200 to do the work. (= somebody paid the men $200)

Prepositional verbs in Passive:

When we put an active sentence, where a preposition follows after the verb (e.g. break into, look after), into Passive – the preposition remains immediately after the verb.

Active sentence	Passive sentence
Someone broke into the pet shop.	The pet shop was broken into.
Everybody talked much about the film.	The film was much talked about.
They laughed at him.	He was laughed at.

It is necessary to remember prepositional verbs that are often used in Passive constructions:

to account for	to agree to	to agree on/upon	to arrive at a decision
to call for, at, on	to comment on	to count on	to deal with
to depend on/upon	to hear of	to insist on/upon	to laugh at
to listen to	to look after, at, down, on, up, to, upon, into, over	to refer to	to rely on
to send for	to speak about/of, to	to provide for	to put up with
to talk about, over, to	to think of, over	to write about