Question

Change the following statement into passive voice.
I saw him leaving the house.
a. Leaving the house he was seen by me.
b. He was seen leaving he house by me.
c. He had been seen leaving the house.
d. He was seen to be leaving the house.

Answer 1

Hint:
 Read the sentence and try to convey it to a third person in your own words. Then, go through the given options and see which ones resemble the sentence you just formed in your head, that is, passive voice. Choose the correct option accordingly.

Complete answer:
 Let us first understand what active and passive voices are.
Active voice means that the given sentence has a subject that performs its verb. In short, this means that the subject is visible or is present in the sentence. For example, in the given question, the sentence ‘Many housewives do not cook food’, the subject is ‘many housewives’.
Passive voice means that a subject is in place of an object, i.e. a recipient of a verb’s action. This means that the subject is not outrightly seen. It is usually there but is considered invisible. At the end of a passive voice sentence, to make the subject seen, you just add ‘by someone’. This becomes the default subject. However, in the given sentence, there is no need to add an extra subject as it is not invisible.
In order to convert the active voice into passive voice, all you need to do is change the order of the parts of speech. So, the ‘subject + verb + object’ in active voice changes to ‘object + verb + (subject)’ in the passive voice. We also need to make sure that the words remain, more or less, the same.

Now, we know what we are looking for. Let’s look at the given options-
a. Leaving the house he was seen by me. - This statement is unnecessarily jumbled. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
b. He was seen leaving the house by me. - In this sentence, the order of the different parts of speech has been reversed, which is the correct thing to do. This is the required answer. So, this is the correct option.
c. He had been seen leaving the house. - This sentence is also in the passive voice, however, it is grammatically inconsistent as it has the wrong tense. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
d. He was seen to be leaving the house. - This sentence is also in the passive voice, however, it is grammatically inconsistent as it has the wrong tense. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.


Note:
In active voice, the subject plays a pivotal and important role in the sentence, however, in the passive voice, the object is considered an important part, as it is placed first. Sometimes, it is not outrightly visible, nor is it a command. Make sure that the sentence is not unnecessarily lengthened.