Newspaper Headlines - Active or Passive?
Headlines in newspapers are very short. They usually do not include punctuation, articles, and auxiliary verbs.
Can you understand the headline here? Which of the below sentences is correct form of the headline?
- "Cameron accused as troubled charity fails" (the active voice, where Cameron is the agent doing the verb.)
- "Cameron is accused as troubled charity fails" (a passive voice, where Cameron is the object of the verb accused.)
The answer is... #2 -- passive voice! The full sentence, written grammatically (with articles and punctuation) would be the following:
Camera is accused as his/the trouble charity fails.
Headlines are tricky, aren't they? They can also be a great way to study the passive voice.
Task: Some of the headlines below are in the active voice and some are in the passive voice. Rewrite the headlines so that they are grammatically correct. This means inserting articles (a/an/the), punctuation (.,!), and the be verb if the sentence is passive. Good luck!
Note: To review the grammar for the passive voice, please visit our page on the passive voice and when to use it.
(Teachers: You can download the worksheet here to use in class: newspaper-headlines-passive.doc)
Answer
Toronto was/has been named 'the most youthful' city in the world. (Passive)
Answer
Taylor Swift wins the top prize at the American Music Awards. (Active)
World's Biggest Bookstore sold to developer
Answer
The world's biggest bookstore was/has been sold to a developer. (Passive)
Answer
Two baby baboons were born at the Brooklyn zoo. (Passive)
Answer
The Scottish government reveals an/their independence plan. (Active)
Answer
The world's first electric helicopter takes flight in Germany. (Active)
Answer
Obama was/has been elected president for a second term. (Passive)
Answer
Mothers are asked nearly 300 questions a day. (Passive)
Answer
2000 workers were laid off by (the) Ford motor company last month. (Passive)
Please feel free to write comments or questions below about the passive exercise.
- Matthew Barton / Writer at Englishcurrent.com
Related:
why cant- toronto has been named the most useful city in the world- be the right answer?
You’re right. It can be. Thanks. I changed it.
because it is the most intelligent in the world, since it has the most technological advances.
It was very nice n it was useful for me at last movement.
Please give a detailed information about its usage.I am till now not able to find when to use active and when to use passive….
Hello. I have made a new article about the passive voice for you: https://www.englishcurrent.com/esl-materials-2/english-grammar-passive-voice/ . Please have a look. -MB
Boring. I hate it. I could be reading or skating instead of this.
Well, then why read it?
it is very nice to learn and i learned
I COULDN’T UNDERSTAND THE RULES ABOUT HOW TO WRITE A NEWS HEADLINES IN ACTIVE OR PASSIVE VOICE. PLZ………….DO HELP
Please view this page to review the use of the passive voice: https://www.englishcurrent.com/grammar/english-grammar-passive-voice/
Nice
WHY CANT IT BE….
TOP PRIZE AT AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS HAS BEEN WON BY TALYOR SWIFT.
…
OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT YOU KNOW ….
I REALLY HOPE YOU THINK ABOUT IT…..
Your sentence grammatically fine. However, in the exercise above, you can’t change the words (e.g. you can’t change ‘wins’ to ‘won’). It’s about recognizing whether the newspaper headlines are passive or active voice.
oh thanks …
you have cleared a lot but is my sentence correct if you had to change it into passive
OH..
THANKS NOW I GET IT
YOU ARE GREAT
Is it like only past tense is passive…
No right so .. how will the 1st one or several one of them be passive.
How do you decide whether it is active or passive ….
In conection to this I have read all your other active passive documents
Can you,please solve my problem.
I am a student of grade 6…………….
The passive can be used in the past, present, or future.
To decide whether the sentence is active or passive, you need to look at the sentence’s subject. Is it the agent (actor) of the verb? Or is it the object of the verb? If it’s the object, then you’ve got a passive construction. If it’s the agent (or doer) of the verb, then it’s an active sentence.
I am the same anonymous person ………
please help me within 48 hours ………
I HAVE EXAMS
ON TUESDAY……………………………………………HELP
very good questions actually helped me to make out for my exams :tommorrow
Why cant we use top prize at American music award is won by taylor swift. Plz clear my doubt
You can. But the purpose of the exercise is not to change _all_ the sentences to passive. The purpose is to recognize which sentences are active and which are passive. “Taylor Swift wins top prize” is an active sentence, and it does not contain any errors in the verb.
there can be more exercies
very useful…… post
Freaking amazing….
Love it …..
Gr8 ones
Helped me a lot:)
W8ng for more
This helped me to do my HOME Work thank you
when we use is/was and when we use has been /had been? how we recognise which helping verb should we use?
– Use ‘is/are’ to change a sentence in the simple present into the passive voice. E.g. I make money. > Money is made (by me).
– Use ‘was/were’ to change a sentence in the simple past into the passive voice. E.g. I hired John. > John was hired (by me).
– Use ‘has/have’ to change a sentence in the present perfect simple into the passive voice. E.g. I have finished my homework > My homework has been finished (by me).
– Use ‘had’ to change a sentence in the past perfect simple into the passive voice. E.g. I had phoned John. > John had been phoned (by me).
Can you help with this passive sentence, need to understand how to change it to active form.
The site of the castle was carefully chosen
e.g. is it:(someone) had to choose the site of the castle carefully?
Active: Someone carefully chose the site of the castle.
(The passive sentence is in past simple without ‘had to’ so the active sentence should be in past simple without ‘had to’)
Thank you very much it helped me in my project
It was a gud moment learning this
good* not gud
Make it in large sentence although it’s good and usefull
Hello this is very helpful for me. My presentation is about expanding headlines. Is this worksheet suitable for my presentation to apply in classroom? and which method?
If I were you, I would use local headlines in your presentation. That will be more interesting for your audience.
Till more passive voice
300 questions a day were asked by (the) mothers.
If it were an active sentence, the headline would be “Mothers ask 300 questions a day” (without the past participle). The past tense is possible, grammatically, however. Culturally, it’s interesting that some students who see the headline think the mothers are the ones asking questions. Typically in North America, we see children as the source of many (unnecessary) questions.
hi, very interesting site. I was just wondering… don’t you have different rules for headlines writing? it’s because, as far as I know, writers tend to omit auxiliary verbs when they’re writing for news headlines and, thus, making what you might consider grammatical errors as you’ve demonstrated above.
That’s right. The headlines in the exercise aren’t examples of mistakes. But they do provide a good opportunity for students to rewrite them so they can get a better understanding of the passive voice.
I was discussing with another teacher the “Baboons are on display”. My students also contested the passive voice here. Grammatically speaking the baboons are the subject and there is no verb that follows the (to be), so this would make the baboons agents in “being” on display. But for all intents and purposes, monkeys or any zoo animals are never agents in anything other than sitting inside cages. They are deprived of agency. So what is the correct conclusion here? Is this a passive voice (but uses grammatical structure reminiscent of active voice) or is it actually considered active voice? Thanks for your input.
Hello, Mick. You and your students are right. “Baboons are on display” is not the passive voice. Here, the ‘be’ verb is the main verb. Because the ‘be’ verb is a linking verb and not a transitive verb (a verb that can take an object), we cannot use it in the passive voice. In the baboon sentence, ‘on display’ functions as an adjective, just like ‘visible.’ Of course, ‘Baboons are visible’ is not a passive sentence. It’s Subejct + Verb + Complement. The sentence is neither active nor passive. I will update the answer above. Thank you for pointing it out.
My teacher gave me a project based on VOICE…….but I couldn’t find this helpful to do it.
Sir, what would be the passive of
EIGHT-YEAR-OLD BOY KIDNAPPED.
That headline, written in full, would be “An eight-year-old boy [has been kidnapped/was kidnapped].”
Thanks! It helped me a lot in my exams.
Hello. Thanks for the posts, they are very helpful and I really like them!
I would like to ask how can I know the correct verb tense. For example:
Cameron accused as troubled charity fails
Cameron was accused … (It is the correct answer) But,
Why can’t I put the sentence on the present?
Cameron is accused…?
Hello. Technically, that sentence could be either past tense or present tense, as you point out. But because the final verb is ‘fails’, that suggests we’re talking about something in the present tense, so the most natural verb to use would be ‘is accused’.
Very useful! Thanks so much :-). It helped me a lot to refresh the passive voice.
Nice exercise, it was helpful! Thanks
Homework (passive and active voice)
This site has a problem .
What is it?
Very nice good i am happy this is full of knowledge thamku for that
this is really helpful but i dont know when to convert in into past or present form
Hello. You can use the same tense that is in the headline.