Question

Write the passive voice for the given sentence:
The police arrested two people last night.

a) Two people have been arrested last night by the police.
b) Two people are arrested last night by the police.
c) Two people were arrested last night by the police.
d) Two people was arrested last night by the police.

Answer 1

Hint: In active voice, the focus is on the subject of the sentence doing something. In passive voice, the focus is on the object of the sentence.

Complete answer:

 In the given sentence, the subject is ‘the police’. They arrested two people last night. ‘Two people’ is the object of the sentence. The sentence is in the active voice because it is focusing on what the police did last night, that is, they made two arrests.
When we have to change this into passive voice, we have to shift the focus from the police to the people who got arrested. The active sentence is in the past tense, therefore the passive sentence will also be in the past tense. Thus, the sentence will be ‘Two people were arrested last night by the police’ or ‘Two people were arrested by the police last night’. Therefore, the correct answer is option c.
Option a is wrong because the tense of the sentence changes from simple past to present perfect.
Option b is incorrect because the tense of the sentence changes from the simple past tense to the simple present tense. The sentence talks about something which happened last night. Last night signifies that it happened in the past. A verb in the present tense (are) cannot be used with ‘last night’.
Option d is wrong because two people are being talked about. With a plural noun, a plural verb will follow. Thus, it should be ‘were’ and not ‘was’. ‘Was’ is used with singular nouns.

Note: It is important that the tense of the sentence does not change while changing from active to passive voice or from passive voice to active voice.