Question

Write the given sentence in the passive voice:
Ann can’t use her office at the moment.
a. Ann’s office can’t be used at the moment by her.
b. His office can’t be used at the moment by Ann.
c. Ann’s office is not used at the moment by her.
d. His office is not used at the moment by Ann.

Answer 1

Hint: Read the given sentence and understand what it means. Now try to convey this to a third person in your head. Check which of the options are closest to the sentence which you just formed and make sure that it is grammatically correct.

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 ‘Ann can’t use her office at the moment’, the subject is ‘Ann’ and the object is ‘her office’.
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.

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 the active voice changes to
‘object + verb + (subject)’ in the passive voice.
Now, we know what we are looking for. Let’s look at the given options:
a. Ann’s office can’t be used at the moment by her. - This sentence is in the passive voice, and the tense and verb match the subject. This is the required answer.
b. His office can’t be used at the moment by Ann. - This sentence is also in the passive voice,
however, it does not have the same meaning as the given sentence in the question. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
c. Ann’s office is not used at the moment by her. - This sentence is also in the passive voice,
however it does not have the same verb as the given sentence in the question. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.
d. His office is not used at the moment by Ann. - This sentence is also in the passive voice,
however, it does not have the same meaning as the given sentence in the question. This is not the required answer. So, this is an incorrect option.

Note: In active voice, the subject performs the action, however, in the passive voice, the subject is placed at the end of the sentence. It is not outrightly visible, nor is it a command. Subject: English