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Passive question- Manhattan

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by isisalaska » Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:55 am
Hi
could anyone explain to me why is this sentence in the passive voice correct?

All physicians should have been informed of the new regulation by an OSHA representative.

the explaination in the Manhattan review is not that clear. :?
Thanks!
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by aim-wsc » Wed Jan 03, 2007 4:20 pm
... because simple and flawless alternative sentence might not be available.

i always insist to present a complete problem with options given.

what are the options?

try making the sentence in active voice... u ll realise that OS is not that clumsy afterall :)
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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jan 08, 2007 5:37 pm
Hi, guys

If I recall correctly, this question is used as an example in one of the chapters and does not include answer choices - is that right?

Passive voice is a grammatically valid construct - that is, it is not a grammar error. Generally speaking, for both the GMAT and regular written English, active voice is preferred to passive voice, but this does not mean that we always use active instead of passive. It just means that we use active more frequently than we use passive.

Never cross off answer choices just because they are passive. Actual grammatical errors always trump anything else. Then, if you narrow down to two sentences, one passive and one active, and both are completely grammatically correct and maintain the appropriate meaning of the original sentence without ambiguity, then the test will prefer the active option to the passive option. But it is not too common for this to be the final decision-maker on a question.

We use passive voice when we want to emphasize a particular noun as the subject of the sentence. For instance, I might say (active voice):

The dog ate my homework.

But if my teacher had just said to me, "Where is your homework?" I might instead say, "My homework was eaten by my dog."

Generally, I'd prefer the active version ("My dog ate...") but if I have some particular reason to make homework the subject of the sentence, then I have to use passive construction.

Does that make more sense?
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by bhumika.k.shah » Mon Feb 08, 2010 4:51 am
Yes it does stacey. :)

But usually when should we use passive voice??? Given two options with one statement in the passive voice and the other in active , when can i say that the former tone is better than the latter.???
Stacey Koprince wrote:Hi, guys

If I recall correctly, this question is used as an example in one of the chapters and does not include answer choices - is that right?

Passive voice is a grammatically valid construct - that is, it is not a grammar error. Generally speaking, for both the GMAT and regular written English, active voice is preferred to passive voice, but this does not mean that we always use active instead of passive. It just means that we use active more frequently than we use passive.

Never cross off answer choices just because they are passive. Actual grammatical errors always trump anything else. Then, if you narrow down to two sentences, one passive and one active, and both are completely grammatically correct and maintain the appropriate meaning of the original sentence without ambiguity, then the test will prefer the active option to the passive option. But it is not too common for this to be the final decision-maker on a question.

We use passive voice when we want to emphasize a particular noun as the subject of the sentence. For instance, I might say (active voice):

The dog ate my homework.

But if my teacher had just said to me, "Where is your homework?" I might instead say, "My homework was eaten by my dog."

Generally, I'd prefer the active version ("My dog ate...") but if I have some particular reason to make homework the subject of the sentence, then I have to use passive construction.

Does that make more sense?
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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Feb 08, 2010 12:18 pm
In the real world? You can say it either way. On the GMAT? The GMAT prefers active to passive, assuming that both the grammar and the meaning are 100% correct.

So, if you were to see two completely grammatically correct answers on the GMAT, one active and one passive, you'd choose active. But they really don't do this much. If they want passive to be correct, all of the active voice ones will have some kind of error (grammar or meaning), and you'll have to choose passive by default. If they want active to be correct, they typically avoid having an incorrect choice with passive as the only problem, so there will usually be other stuff to help you decide.
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