Passive: past simple
was/were + past participle.
The past simple passive is used when we want to focus on what happened to someone or something in the past, rather than on who did the action. We form it with the past tense of 'be' — 'was' (singular) or 'were' (plural) — followed by the past participle of the main verb. Regular verbs form their past participle by adding -ed: 'clean' → 'cleaned', 'build' → 'built' (irregular). To convert an active sentence to passive: the object becomes the new subject, the verb changes to was/were + past participle, and the original subject may be introduced with 'by' or dropped entirely. For example, 'Workers built this bridge in 1920' becomes 'This bridge was built in 1920 (by workers)'. The 'by' phrase is kept only when the agent is important or unknown. Negatives are formed with 'was/were not (wasn't/weren't) + past participle', and questions with 'Was/Were + subject + past participle?'. For example: 'The letter was written yesterday, but the packages were not delivered on time.'
Rules
- 1Form: was (singular subject) / were (plural subject) + past participle — e.g., 'The car was repaired.'
- 2Regular past participles add -ed (open → opened); irregular ones must be memorised (write → written, break → broken, build → built).
- 3To convert active to passive: the active object becomes the new subject; add was/were + past participle; the active subject may follow 'by' or be omitted.
- 4Negative: was/were + not + past participle — e.g., 'The windows weren't cleaned.'
- 5Question: Was/Were + subject + past participle? — e.g., 'Were the books returned?'
Practice
10 easy · 10 medium · 10 hard