Read the paragraph. (1) last week, our english class watched a hilarious movie based on a novel. (2) in it, a couple of incompetent thieves bungle their way through a heist. (3) after several escapades, a priceless painting is stolen by the thieves. (4) but then, the thieves make an impressive blunder and accidentally return it. which sentence in the paragraph is in the passive voice? sentence 1 sentence 2 sentence 3 sentence 4

Answer and Explanation:

Sentence 3 is correct because a "passive voice" is the subject that is acted upon by some other performer of the verb.

The difference between active and passive voice:

While tense is all about time references, the voice describes whether the grammatical subject of a clause performs or receives the action of the verb. Here’s the formula for the active voice: [subject]+[verb (performed by the subject)]+[optional object]

Example: Chester kicked the ball.

In a passive voice construction, the grammatical subject of the clause receives the action of the verb. So, the ball from the above sentence, which is receiving the action, becomes the subject. The formula: [subject]+[some form of the verb to be]+[past participle of a transitive verb]+[optional prepositional phrase]

Example: The ball was kicked by Chester.

That last little bit—“by Chester”—is a prepositional phrase that tells you who the performer of the action is. But even though Chester is the one doing the kicking, he’s no longer the grammatical subject. A passive voice construction can even drop him from the sentence entirely:

Example: The ball was kicked.