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Passive Test Dutch Discovered Past Doer Sentence Australia

Question Australia ________________ (to discover) by Dutch explorers in 1606.
A is discovered
B discovered
C was discovered
D discovers
Answer c
Remark The passive voice is used when we want to focus attention on the person or thing affected by the action. The passive is usually formed by the verb to be + past participle. We can leave out the ‘doer’ or agent, or we can place the ‘doer’ in a prepositional phrase (by + ‘doer’). We use passive forms of tenses in the same way as we use their active equivalents.As the exact year of Australia’s discovery is stated in the test sentence ‘Australia ________________(to discover) by Dutch explorers in 1606.’, we understand that we should use the Past Simple passive in this sentence. Therefore, we are to choose ANSWER 3 ‘was discovered’. ‘Discovered’ is the past participle of the regular verb ‘discover’.In the test sentence the main focus is on the name of the country - Australia (the smallest continent in the world and the 6th largest country in the world, after Russia, Canada, China, USA, and Brazil) that is the subject of the test sentence.The ‘doer’ is placed in the prepositional phrase ‘by Dutch explorers’. We use this structure ‘passive +by + doer’ when the agent/doer is important. In the test sentence the agent is important because of the historical context: in 1606 the first ship ‘Duyfken’ captained by Dutchman Willem Janszoo and its crew charted part of the Australian coast and met with Aboriginal people.

Tags: passive_voice

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