The passive Inan active sentence, the subjectisthe person or thing that performs the action: Masked thieves stolea valuable painting {fromthe museum lastnight. ‘When you make thisintoarassivesentence, the object ofthe verb becomes the subject: > Avvaluable painting was stolen fromthe museum lastnight. ‘The passive is formed with theauailiary verb be and the past participle of the verb: » Thepaintings valued at2 milion dollars. > Thelock had been broken cn the cameras hhad been switched off » Othermuseums have been wamed¢o take » Staffat he museum willbe questioned bypoliceomorrow. > Museum security sto be improved. Use the passive: 1 when you donot know who performed the action, or when this information isnot important. tis common in formal writing, for example scientific writing: » Theliguidie heated 060 and then {filtered -fyouwant to mention who performed the action, youuse by at the end ofthe > Thetheftis being investigated by the police. 1 when you want to save new or important {information until the end ofthe sentence for emphasis! » Thepicture was painted by Constable, Itispossibleto puta verb that has two ‘objects into the passive: > (active) The director toldehe staf the news this morning. » (passive) The staff mere tod the news this morning bythe director. Some verbs cannot be used in the passive, land this isshown atthe entries, Conditionals Sentences with Ware used to express possiblities: First conditional if clause present tense main clause fulure tense ‘used totalk about the consequence of a possibleaction > flwrite ny essay this afternoon, Iwill have time ogo out tonight. itisstil morning, andi is quite possible that will do this) Second conditional if clause past simple; main clause conditional tense ‘used totalk about the consequences ofa hypothetical action: > Iflwrote my essay thisafternoon, would have ime to g0 out tonight {itisstillmorning, but thinkitisess likely ‘that Iwill dothis,) Third conditional if clause past peri main clause conditional perfect tense ‘used to talk about the possible consequence of ‘anaction that did nat happen: > fthad written my essay this afternoon, would have had time to go out tonight {itisnow evening, and [haven't written my ‘essay: itis now impossible for meto go out) Zero conditional ‘Sometimes sentences with express certainty "rather than possiblity. The ZER0 CONDITIONAL {sused to talkaboutsomething thats always ‘true, or that was always true inthe past: > Ifyou mixblueand red, you et purple. {present simple in both parts ofthe sentence) » IFlasked her tcomewith us, she always said ‘no. {past simplein both parts ofthe sentence]