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Anonymous Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

Active or Passive

Hi

The visitors ---- all the different ways of making candy floss.

A. had shown
B. were shown
C. showed
D. has shown
E. shows

I'm confused. The correct option is B. But why? I couldn't understand. Why do we need passive here? Maybe the visitors are making candy floss. How can we express it?

Thank you all
  

Top answer

Anonymous Maybe the visitors are making candy floss. Not very likely. The verb "show" in active voice almost always makes explicit who is being shown.

— CalifJim

  • Anonymous Maybe the visitors are making candy floss.
  • Not very likely.
  • The verb "show" in active voice almost always makes explicit who is being shown.
  • It would be like this: The visitors showed their friends all the different ways of making candy floss.
  • Because it's passive, B is the only choice that doesn't have the problem of that missing element in the sentence.
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2 Answers
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AnonymousMaybe the visitors are making candy floss.
Not very likely. The verb "show" in active voice almost always makes explicit who is being shown. It would be like this:

The visitors showed their friends all the different ways of making candy floss.

Because it's passive, B is the only choice that doesn't have the problem of
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Thanks for your explanation CalifJim
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