Question

Fill in the blanks with the correct passive form:
Sugar and tea _____________ by the grocer.
a)Is sold
b)Are sold
c)Is sell
d)Are sell

Answer 1

Hint: A sentence in the form of passive voice focuses on the person or thing that receives an action rather than the person or thing that is performing the action. For example – ‘Anita was driven to the theater by Carla’.

Complete step-by-step answer:

The steps to form a passive sentence are –
Move the receiver of the action from the object to the subject position
Insert the appropriate form of the verb ‘to be’ and change the verb to its past participle form
Insert the verb in agreement to the number and the tense of the new sentence

Option a - is sold, talks about a single thing whereas we are talking about sugar and tea both. The tense here is correct but the count is wrong.

Option b – are sold, talks of plurals things, here are sold is formed by the simple present tense of ‘to be’, i.e. are + past participle i.e. sold.

Option c – is sell, here the tense is not correct and neither is the count.

Option d – are sell, is not correct.

Hence, option b is the correct solution to the above given question.

 Note: We use the passive voice when the receiver of the action is more important in our communication than the one who did the action.