Passive Voice - Simple Past Tense

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We use Past Simple Passive for actions or events that happened in the past (yesterday, last week (month, year), in 2010). Unlike the Past Perfect Passive, there’s no specific point in the past. In such statements we focus attention on the person or thing affected by the action, when the subject is unknown, unclear or irrelevant.

Compare:

  • Tom repaired the car. – The car was repaired by Tom.

  • Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. – The light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison.

In these examples, the focus is on the effect of the past action, it’s not important who performed the action.

We use Past Simple Passive with the same meaning as Past Simple in the active voice except for the fact that Past Simple Passive makes focus on the effect (or the object) rather than the doer (the subject) of an action. Read more about the uses of Past Simple here.

Active : The teacher corrected the mistakes.

Passive: The mistakes were corrected by the teacher.


Active : Did the little boy sell all the candy bars?

Passive: Were all the candy bars sold by the little boy?


Active : Lauren didn't eat any apples.

Passive: No apples were eaten by Lauran.


Active : He didn't give the wallet.

Passive: The wallet wasn't given by him.


Positive :  America was discovered in 1850.

Question : Was America discovered in 1850 ?

Negative : America was not discovered in 1850.

Negative Question : Wasn’t America discovered in 1850 ?



Positive : They were punished by the teacher.

Question : Were they punished by the teacher ?

Negative : They were not punished by the teacher.

Negative Question : Weren’t they punished by the teacher ?

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