Active and Passive Voice – Simple Past Tense

Formation of Passive Voice -Simple Past Tense 

 In the passive voice of simple past tense like any other passives, an object becomes subject. An auxiliary verb is used according to the number of objects because here object becomes the subject of the sentence. Action is done on the object in the past time. To interchange active voice into passive voice in the simple past tense, the form of ‘to be’ that is, was, or were is used with the past participle of a verb used in a sentence.

It means the formation of the simple past tense in-

  • an affirmative sentence is –

object + was / were + past participle of verb + by + subject

  • question sentence is –

was / were + object + past participle of verb + by + subject

Examples of passive voice in the simple past tense

We shall take an example for better understanding-

In the above sentence- ‘I’ is subject, ‘saw’ is a verb of the sentence and ‘a beautiful girl’ is object.

Now we have to change this sentence into a passive voice but keep in mind that we should not change the tense that is simple past tense.

According to the formation given above, we can write:

  •  A beautiful girl (object) was (verb) seen (past participle of see) by me.

Example with Three Persons

Let’s take an example with three persons of singular as well as plural number. Have a look-

1st person - IActive VoiceI finished the work.
Passive VoiceThe work was finished by me.
WeActive VoiceWe finished the work.
Passive VoiceThe work was finished by us.
2nd person - YouActive VoiceYou finished the work.
Passive VoiceThe work was finished by you.
YouActive VoiceYou finished the work.
Passive VoiceThe work was finished by you.
3rd person -HeActive VoiceHe finished the work.
Passive VoiceThe work was finished by him.
SheActive VoiceShe finished the work.
Passive VoiceThe work was finished by her.
TheyActive VoiceThey finished the work.
Passive VoiceThe work was finished by them.

Go over: Passive voice- Related links you may like  

Simple Present Tense
Past Simple Tense
Simple Future Tense
Continuous Present Tense
Past Continuous Tense
Perfect Present Tense
Past Perfect Tense
Perfect Future Tense