Passive Voice: Practice.

By Prof. Edu

1) Fill in the blanks in passive voice; present or past form.

Another bank ___________________ (rob) last night. A lot of help __________________

(ask) by the police in order to solve the case ASAP. Two masked men __________________ (see)
by the neighbors when they were escaping from the scene. About $1.000.000
___________________ (take). A good thing is that many of these robbers
_____________________ lately.

2) Fill in the blanks with passive voice or past simple.

a) Jack’s radio ____________________ (steal) from his car while he ________________

(eat) in a nearby restaurant.
b) The burglars ___________________ (give) light sentences because they
________________ (turn) themselves in to the police and _________________
(return) everything to their victims.
c) The shoplifters ___________________ (catch) immediately because the security guard
___________________ (call) by some customers.
d) The detective ___________________ (give) contradictory information, so he
_________________ (not/trust) any of the witnesses.
e) The suspects ____________________ (tell) that they were free to go because the
police ___________________ (not/have) enough evidence against them.

3) Circle the correct form of the verb.

On December 22, 2000, three armed robbers walked/were walked into the lobby
of the National Museum as it was closing. One thief stood/was stood in the lobby with a
machine gun while the others ran/were run to three specific paintings in different rooms.
Three paintings – two Renoirs and a Rembrandt self-portrait – stole/were stolen.
Together, these three works valued/were valued at $60 million.

At the same time as the theft was taking place, two car fires started/were started
by accomplices in the museum parking lot, confusing police who responded to the security
alarms. In the chaos, the three robbers escaped/were escaped from the waterfront
museum in a powerful speedboat.

The thieves caught/were caught through luck, rather than detective work, when
their apartment raided/was raided by police who were looking for drugs. Instead, the
detectives found the stolen art.