Question

Change the voice:
He donated all his money in charity.
A) In charity he donated all his money.
B) All his money is donated by him in charity.
C) All his money has been donated by him in charity.
D) All his money was donated by him in charity.

Answer 1

Hint: The voice in an English sentence refers to either the active or the passive voice. It basically shows the relationship between the action (verb) and the noun (subject or object). The active voice tells us that the ‘subject is doing an action on the object’, whereas the passive voice tells us that the ‘object has undergone an action done by the subject.

Complete answer:
To convert a sentence from the active voice to the passive voice, we need to make certain changes in the sentence. The subject in the active sentence is ‘He’ and will become the object in the passive voice. The object in the active sentence is ‘money’ and will become the subject in the passive voice. Then the verb in the active sentence, i.e. in the present tense has to be changed into its participle form in the passive sentence.

Now let us look at the given options:
Option A) In charity he donated all his money – In this sentence, the subject is still ‘he’ and the object is still ‘money’ as it is in the question. Therefore, the sentence has not been changed into the passive voice. This option is incorrect.
Option B) All his money is donated by him in charity – In this sentence, the subject and the object have been interchanged correctly. The ‘is’ verb on the other hand is incorrect. It is in the present participle form. The question is given in the past tense; hence the passive voice should have been in the ‘past participle’. This option is incorrect.
Option C) All his money has been donated by him in charity – In this sentence, the subject and the object have been interchanged correctly but the verb is not in the past perfect tense. The words ‘has been’ indicates that the verb is in the present perfect continuous tense. Therefore, this option is incorrect.
Option D) All his money was donated by him in charity – In this sentence, the subject and object are interchanged. The verb in this option is in the past perfect tense. ‘Donated’ is the participle form of the verb ‘donate’. Therefore, this option is absolutely correct.

Thus, the correct answer is option (D) All his money was donated by him in charity.

Note: We generally use the active voice in our daily life. But there are certain things that we say in the passive voice very commonly. For e.g. I was born in December. We do not say ‘My mother gave birth to me in December’. This is because ‘We’ are the point of focus, or the important part of the sentence. Similarly, ‘The movie Tenet was directed by Christopher Nolan,’ and we do not say ‘ Christopher Nolan directed the movie, Tenet.’ Again, this is because the “movie, Tenet’ is the point of focus in the sentence.