A big factor for both clarity and formality in English is the use of active and passive voice. Every time you speak or write in English, the way you structure your sentences shapes how clear and confident you sound. The question is, are you clear on the differences in the active vs passive voice in English?
For many English learners, these two forms can feel interchangeable, and it’s not always easy to know which to use in certain contexts. Here’s everything you need to know about active vs passive voice to boost your fluency, accuracy and overall IELTS band score.
Active vs passive voice rules
What’s the difference between the active vs passive voice? The active voice is used when the subject performs the action (e.g. ‘the student answered the question’). The passive voice sees the focus shift to the receiver of the action (e.g. ‘the question was answered by the student’).
Active voice structure
Active voice emphasises the person or thing (the subject) doing an action. In active voice, sentences use the following structure:
Subject + Verb + Object
The active voice structure immediately tells whomever you’re speaking to, or writing for, who is doing what and why it matters.
You can use active voice in different tenses to talk about actions in the present and past. For example, you might say, ‘Researchers evaluate data critically’ to describe a general fact. This is active voice because the emphasis is on the researchers (the ‘who’), who are evaluating data (the ‘what’), and doing so critically (the ‘why’).
An example in the past could be: ‘Researchers evaluated data critically’. Even though the tense has changed, the sentence focus remains on the researchers and what they did.
All English tenses can be expressed in the active voice, including:
Future perfect – Researchers will have evaluated the data critically.
Present perfect continuous – Researchers have been evaluating the data critically.
Present continuous – Researchers are evaluating the data critically.
Passive voice structure
Passive voice places the attention of a sentence onto the action itself or the receiver of the action. For passive voice, the sentence structure is:
Subject + Form of ‘to be’ + Past participle (+ by + agent)
Passive voice can be valuable in academic and formal writing because it increases objectivity by taking the focus away from the person doing the action. Using the passive voice this way helps you shape the tone of your writing and show that you have strong grammar skills. This is a quality that IELTS examiners look for in academic tasks.
Using the example sentence from the active voice section, the passive voice form is: ‘The data was critically evaluated by researchers.’ By priorisiting the data (and not the researchers), the tone becomes more formal and more appropriate for a context such as report writing.
Examples of the passive voice being used with other tenses:
Perfect passive – The data will have been critically evaluated by researchers.
Causative passive – The researchers will have the data critically evaluated (by experts)
The passive voice can also be used with modals:
Modal passive – The data should be critically evaluated by researchers.
Perfect modal passive – The data should have been critically evaluated by researchers.
For more IELTS writing tips, read How to improve your grammar for IELTS.
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Active vs passive voice in IELTS Writing
In IELTS Writing, knowing when to choose active or passive voice can make your arguments stronger and your descriptions clearer.
Active voice is ideal when you want to emphasise who is performing an action, and can help you express opinions or make direct statements.
For example, ‘The government should invest more in public transport’ is written in the active voice. It places focus on the government, but also highlights that you’re giving an opinion and that you believe it’s the government’s responsibility to carry out the action that follows (‘should invest more in public transport’).
On the other hand, passive voice makes sense in IELTS Academic Writing to describe processes, data trends or diagrams. Passive voice delivers a formal, objective tone and is therefore appropriate for academic contexts.
For example, ‘Carbon dioxide emissions were reduced by 15% over the period’ is a good way to describe a graph that shows CO2 emissions over several years.
‘Water is pumped from the reservoir and distributed to urban areas’ could describe a new urban water system. Both of these examples are written in passive voice because they highlight the receivers of the action (i.e., carbon dioxide and water), which enables you to sound more objective and precise.
Below is a clear breakdown of when to use active/passive voice in IELTS Writing.
|
Active voice in IELTS Writing |
Passive voice in IELTS Writing |
|
Expressing opinions |
Improve objectivity, formality, and impersonality |
|
Making arguments |
To emphasise results or actions |
|
Stating facts or causes |
To vary sentence structure and avoid repetitive sentence patterns |
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Giving personal examples or experiences |
If the subject is irrelevant or unknown |
|
Improving clarity and fluency |
Presenting data |
Active vs passive voice examples in IELTS Speaking
When it comes to choosing between active and passive voice, things work a little differently in the IELTS Speaking test.
The active voice is used mostly to share personal experiences, opinions and everyday stories in a natural, conversational way. For example, ‘I travelled to the mountains last summer’ or ‘I believe that education shapes our future’, puts you at the centre of what you’re saying.
The above statements make it clear that you are the subject and main focus. They are also engaging sentences and show your fluency in English. Therefore, for questions where your opinion is being asked, or you’re being asked to share information about yourself, the active voice is best.
You probably won’t need to use passive voice much in the IELTS Speaking test, but including some passive voice might help demonstrate your grammatical range. For example, if you’re asked to discuss government policies in cities, you might say in the passive voice: ‘Recycling programmes have been implemented in many cities’, to focus on the results rather than the government.
Similarly, ‘The main streets in the centre of my city were pedestrianised to reduce traffic’, makes the action (pedestrianised) the focus point of what you’re saying.
Another context to use passive voice in the speaking test is when talking in depth about a topic. For example, about a landmark you visited.
You might not know who built the landmark, but you can still talk about it using passive voice, like:
“The tower was built in the 12th century and has been restored a few times to keep it looking like the original.”
This way, you can give good information without needing to say exactly who did it.
Or if you’re talking about the environment, you could say:
“New rules are being made to cut down on single-use plastics, and there have been campaigns all over the country to raise awareness.”
Using passive voice here means you don’t have to say who made the rules or started the campaigns.
In general, the active voice should form most of your responses in the IELTS Speaking test – especially to make you the main agent of what’s being said. Still, the occasional passive voice construction can help you if you don’t know who the subject is.
Final thoughts on the Active vs Passive Voice
It can take a while to fully grasp the difference between active vs passive voice, and know when to use them and how in your IELTS test. Take a look at past papers for active and passive voice exercises, and to develop your understanding in the context of the test.
Remember that there will likely be opportunities to use both active and passive voice. A mixture can always be beneficial, so long as you apply them correctly. The more you practise, the more confident you’ll be.
Are you confident in the differences between the active vs passive voice in English? Then maybe you’re ready for your IELTS test: