Identify the sentence that uses passive voice. A. This past Christmas, my nephew was hoping to receive some gift cards for his game system. B. Oscar Wilde once stated to a customs official that he had nothing to declare but his genius. C. The students are being instructed to use the side entrance to the dorm until further notice. D. Over 5,000 people, many of them having driven overnight, attended the concert in New York.

In most English sentences with an action verb, the subject perfoms the action denoted by the verb. As the subject does or acts upon the verb, the sentences are said to be in the active voice. However, you can change the normal order of words so that the subject is no longer active, but being acted upon by the verb. In this case, "the students" are not the ones doing the action but the ones receiving it, they are the ones "being instructed". In order to form a passive construction, you should move the active sentence's d.o to the subject position, place the active's sentence subject into a by-phrase, and add a form of auxiliary verb to be to the main verb and change the main verb's form.

michell96 michell96 · Answer 2 · 2019-11-11T15:28:03+01:00

The correct answer is C. The students are being instructed to use the side entrance to the dorm until further notice.

Explanation:

In the passive voice, it is common the object of the action is presented first, then the main verb and finally the subject, although this is often omitted. In this way, the subject is less important or is passive. In the case of sentence "The students are being instructed to use the side entrance to the dorm until further notice" this is in passive voice because in this case the object "the students" which are the ones affected by the action are presented first, additionally, the verb construction "are being instructed" show the students are not performing the action, but this is performed by a subject that has been omitted, which is a characteristic in the passive voice.