What are the examples of active voice and passive voice?

Answer 1

The Passive Voice

The passive voice swaps the subject of a sentence in its active voice with the object of the same sentence by using any form of the auxiliary verb 'to be' along with the past participle of the main verb. This action causes the original subject of the sentence which heretofore had performed the action to be inactive and non dependent on the active verb and so it becomes passive.

Example.

The sheep drank water from the trough. This sentence is active.

The (definite article) sheep (subject) drank (main verb) water (object noun) from the (preposition) trough (place noun).

Now let's make it passive:

The water was drunk from the trough by the sheep. This sentence is passive

The water (subject) was (past tense simple form of the auxiliary verb 'to be') drunk (past participle of the main verb) from the trough ( no change) by ( preposition) the sheep (object)..

You can see that the active voice is understood more clearly than the passive voice. It is therefore used mostly by writers and public speakers. However, we ourselves use the passive voice often without realising it. In general the passive voice is employed for the purpose of avoiding over emphasis on anything personal. E.g. 'The news is broadcast on the radio at 6pm everyday'. (This is passive) 'Everyday, the radio broadcasts the news at 6pm'. (This is active), but you can see that in this case and cases like this, the passive voice is clearer than the active voice. That is why it is important to know the right time to use it and this comes with practice.

ALSO

Active sentences tell us who did the action of the verb. They have the form: subject + verb + object

eg The dog chased the cat.

Passive sentences allow us to put something that is not the doer of the verb in the subject position.

eg The cat was chased

You can if you want, say who or what chased the cat by adding the agent at the end of the sentence.

eg The cat was chased by the dog

Passive is used when the actor/agent is not important or is not known. Often when describing a process passive is used

eg Tea is grown in Sri Lanka. It is picked and taken to processing plants where it is dried and packed for export

Or if the actor is the most important bit of information we can add it at the end for emphasis.

The Mona Lisa is a very well known painting. It was painted by Leonardo da Vinci

Answer 2

Example of active voice: "The cat chased the mouse." Example of passive voice: "The mouse was chased by the cat."