ShmoopTube

00:03

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by grandmothers. We all love them, mainly

00:08

because they let us get away with murder.

00:12

How would you rephrase the sentence below, if at all?

00:15

For my birthday a new computer was given to me by my grandmother.

00:24

When at all possible, it's best to avoid the passive voice. "Bill punched John in the face,"

00:30

is better than "John was punched in the face by Bill."

00:35

"Given to me by my grandmother" is a convoluted way to get across the necessary idea, so we'll

00:41

nix choice (A).

00:42

While we're at it, we'll cross out choice (B) as well, since it contains the same passive

00:46

phrasing.

00:47

Neither (C) nor (D) is passive.

00:49

Both sentences are active, because they use "gave" instead of "given." However, (D) excludes

00:54

important information by leaving out the fact that Grandma gave the computer as a birthday

00:59

present.

01:00

Therefore, we can kick (D) to the curb and crown (C) our winner. It's a dog-eat-dog-world,

01:03

and we can't be passive if we want to conquer the ACT.

Full Transcript