Being+past participle, with and without "to be"

Question

I'm totally confused, maybe there is an structure of forming these sentences that I don't know)

I know that we can use a sentence in Present Progressive Passive form like this :

Active : She is delivering the letters.

Passive: The letters are being delivered.

But I just wondering why in some passive sentences we use being without "to be" !!

For example:

All fruits and vegetables need to be washed thoroughly before being eaten.
Trump angrily exits press conference after being challenged by female reporters

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

mirador
I know that we can use a sentence in Present Progressive Passive form like this:
Active : She is delivering the letters.
Passive: The letters are being delivered.

Correct. You already understand this part.

miradorBut I just wondering why in some passive sentences we use being without "to be"!

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick here. I'll explain it below.

All fruits and vegetables need to be washed thoroughly before being eaten.
Trump angrily exits press conference after being challenged by female reporters.

I take it that you're asking about the parts in boldface. Those are not sentences. They are preposition phrases. 'before' and 'after' are prepositions. In English, if you want to put a verb after a preposition, the only form you can use is an -ing form.

You may want to think of these as shorter forms of longer clauses:

... washed thoroughly before the fruits and vegetables are eaten.
... exits press conference after Trump was challenged ...

Now you can shorten these underlined parts of the sentence by omitting their subjects (fruits and vegetables; Trump) because those words are already used as the subjects of their sentences, and it sounds ridiculous to repeat them. But if you shorten them like that, you end up with ungrammatical constructions:

... washed thoroughly before are eaten. (Wrong)
... exits press conference after was challenged ... (Wrong)

Both 'are' and 'was' are forms of be. But they occur after prepositions (before; after), so they must be changed to being.

... washed thoroughly before being eaten. (Correct)
... exits press conference after being challenged ... (Correct)

So that's how we end up with those sentences.

Here are more uses of forms of be after prepositions. I'll write them so they are ungrammatical, with a clause after a preposition, and you can change them so that they are correct. I'll check your answers later if you decide to try to transform them into correct sentences.

Locks kept the lid from [ it was lifted ].
I don't think you can do that without [ you are seen ].
Sometimes the children were abused by [ they were ignored ].
Out professor has no tolerance for [ he is treated disrespectfully ].
Mother and daughter are looking forward to [ they are reunited ].

CJ

Being+past participle, with and without "to be"

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