Question

Change the following sentence into passive voice:
The teacher told us a joke.
(this question has multiple correct options)
(a)We were told a joke by the teacher.
(b)A joke was told to us by the teacher.
(c)We was told a joke by the teacher.
(d)A joke were told to us by the teacher.

Answer 1

Hint: Read the sentence and try to convey the same to a third person in your head. Now go through the options and choose the one which is the closest to the sentence you framed for conveying the given sentence to a third person. Here, the term ‘third-person’ plays a key role.

Complete answer: There are two types of voice- Active voice is a grammatical voice in which the subject acts, whereas Passive voice is a grammatical voice in which the subject receives the action of the verb. The object is more emphasized in the passive voice.
Let’s look at the rules that we need to follow while changing an active voice to passive voice-
(i)The position of the subject and object are interchanged.
(ii)We use a ‘by’ with the subject to indicate who acted.
(iii)We use the corresponding tense form with the past participle form of the verb.
In the given question- We see the use of two objects ‘us’ and ‘joke’ while the verb is given in the past tense form. Either we can use the passive pronoun ‘we’ as the main subject or ‘joke’ as the main subject.
Hence, both ‘we were told a joke by the teacher’ and ‘a joke was told to us by the teacher’ are correct.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
Option a- ‘We were told a joke by the teacher’ is the correct option because ‘we’ has been positioned as the subject, whereas ‘teacher’ is positioned as the object.
Option b- ‘A joke was told to us by the teacher’ is the correct option because ‘joke’ has been positioned as the subject, whereas ‘teacher’ is positioned as the object.
Option c- ‘We was told a joke by the teacher’ is an incorrect option because we need to use the plural verb ‘were’ with the plural subject ‘we’.
Option d- ‘A joke were told to us by the teacher’ is an incorrect option because we need to use the plural verb ‘was’ with the singular object ‘joke’.

Note: Keep in mind, we always use the third form or the past participle form in the passive voice. Also, it is important to use the appropriate corresponding tense forms.