Question

Change the following statement into the passive voice.
You should follow all the instructions carefully.
a. All the instructions are carefully followed by us.
b. All the instructions were carefully followed by us.
c. All the instructions should be carefully followed by you.
d. All the instructions can be carefully followed by us.

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, the passive voice. Make sure that the sentences are not unnecessarily lengthened. 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 ‘You should follow all the instructions carefully’, the subject is ‘you’.

the 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 the 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 the 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. All the instructions are carefully followed by us. - In this sentence, the original subject has been changed. The tense has also been changed. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
b. All the instructions were carefully followed by us. - In this sentence, the original subject has been changed. The tense has also been changed. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
c. All the instructions should be carefully followed by you. - In this sentence, the order of the parts of speech has been reversed correctly, it uses the correct tense and verb. This is the required answer. So, this is the correct option.
d. All the instructions can be carefully followed by us. - In this sentence, the original subject has been changed. The tense has also been changed. 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.