Question

Which of the sentence(s) below is/are in active voice:
The teacher taught the students.
The students learnt from the teacher.
The students were taught by the teacher.
The students did not learn from the teacher.
a) Only 1
b) 1 and 2
c) 1, 2 and 4
d) All of the above sentences (1, 2, 3 and 4)

Answer 1

Hint: To understand the sentence that uses the active voice, you need to look for the sentence in which the subject is doing the action mentioned in the sentence.

Complete answer:
 In the given question we need to identify the sentence or sentences that are in the active voice. To do this, we need to first understand the two types of voices that we can use while communicating.
An active voice is used when the subject of the sentence performs the action of the verb while Passive voice is used when the subject receives the action or when the focus is on the object.
Example- (1) She sang a song. (2) A song was sung by her. Here, in (1) the subject ‘she’ performs the action of singing a song, whereas in (2) the subject receives the action.
Let us take a look at each of the given sentences and try to find the sentence or sentences that use the active voice.
Sentence ‘1’, ‘the teacher taught the students’ is given in the active voice, because the subject, ‘teacher’ is performing the action of the verb, ‘taught’.
Sentence ‘2’, ‘the students learnt from the teacher’ is in active voice, because the subject, ‘students’ is performing the action of the verb, ‘learnt’ from the object, ‘teacher’.
Sentence ‘3’, ‘the students were taught by the teacher’ is in passive voice, because the subject, ‘students’ is receiving the action of the verb.
Sentence ‘4’, ‘the students did not learn from the teacher’ is in a passive voice, because the subject, ‘students’ is performing the action of not learning from the object, ‘teacher’.
Sentence 1,2 and 4 are in the active voice.
Therefore, the correct answer is option ‘C’.

Note:
It is important to keep in mind, we use ‘by’ in passive voice to indicate who is performing the action. Also, we change the position of the object and the subject while changing a sentence from active to passive voice.