Advanced Passive Structures
Beyond “was done” — reporting passives, causatives, passive infinitives, and the structures that shift focus, stay objective, and write with authority.
Choose a structure. A context.
Five passive structures, three contexts — 15 hand-built sentences. Watch how each one moves the spotlight and keeps the doer out of view.
Got the pattern? Jump to the practice →
The rules — with examples
How to report at a distance, arrange things with the causative, and keep the passive alive in every grammatical slot.
The three headline structures
It is said that the house is haunted.
The thieves are thought to have escaped.
I need to get my passport renewed.
Time inside the infinitive: a same-time idea uses to + infinitive (“is said to be rich”); an earlier idea uses to have + past participle (“is believed to have fled”). And the to-infinitive is never clipped: “is said to be”, not “is said be”.
Three reasons to go passive
Causative vs. past perfect — side by side
Keep the particle: phrasal and prepositional verbs hold onto their particle in the passive — call off → was called off, look after → is well looked after, deal with → has been dealt with. Dropping the particle (“the meeting was called”) silently changes the verb.
The full toolkit — eight structures to command
need + -ing is already passive: “The windows need cleaning” = need to be cleaned. Never “need to clean” — that would put the windows to work. The same holds for want and require in this pattern.
Verbs that build reporting passives
Practice & score yourself
Ten questions — five multiple choice, five gap-fill. Instant scoring and a short explanation for every answer.
The one rule to remember
Choose the passive on purpose — to put the important thing first, to stay objective, or to keep the agent out of view. Then build it cleanly: keep the particle (called off), use the full to-infinitive in reporting passives (is said to be), and remember that need + -ing is already passive.