Understanding Active and Passive Voice Transformation

The question asks us to transform a sentence from the active voice into the passive voice. The original sentence is: "The counselor gave very good advice to the students."

Let's first identify the key components of the active sentence:

• Subject: The counselor (the one performing the action)
• Verb: gave (the action being performed)
• Object: very good advice (the thing receiving the action)
• Tense: The verb 'gave' is the simple past tense.

Converting Simple Past Active to Passive Voice

To change a sentence from active voice to passive voice, we generally follow these steps:

1. The object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence.
2. The verb is changed to the appropriate form of the verb 'to be' followed by the past participle of the main verb. The tense of 'to be' must match the tense of the verb in the active sentence.
3. The subject of the active sentence becomes the object of the passive sentence, introduced by the preposition 'by'. This part is optional if the doer of the action is not important or unknown.

In this case, the active sentence verb 'gave' is in the simple past tense. The passive structure for the simple past tense is:

Subject (Object of Active) + was/were + Past Participle of Main Verb + (by + Subject of Active)

Applying this to the sentence "The counselor gave very good advice to the students":

• The object "very good advice" becomes the new subject.
• The verb "gave" is simple past. The past participle of "give" is "given". Since "advice" is uncountable (and treated as singular), the 'to be' verb in simple past should be "was". So, the passive verb form is "was given".
• The original subject "The counselor" becomes "by the counselor".
• The indirect object/prepositional phrase "to the students" remains in the sentence.

Putting it all together, the passive sentence structure should be: "Very good advice was given to the students by the counselor."

Analyzing the Options for Passive Voice

Let's examine each given option to see which one correctly follows the simple past passive structure:

1. Very good advice was given to the students by the counselor.
   • Subject: Very good advice (Object of active sentence) - Correct.
   • Verb: was given (Simple past passive form of 'gave') - Correct.
   • Remainder: to the students by the counselor - Correct.
   • This option correctly uses the simple past passive structure.
2. Very good advice is given to the students by the counselor.
   • Subject: Very good advice - Correct.
   • Verb: is given (Simple present passive form) - Incorrect. The original sentence is in the simple past, so the passive form must also be simple past.
3. Very good advice to the students has been given by the counselor.
   • Subject: Very good advice to the students - The phrase "to the students" is included as part of the subject, which is unusual but possible in some constructions. However, the main issue is the verb.
   • Verb: has been given (Present perfect passive form) - Incorrect. The original sentence is in the simple past.
4. Very good advice to the students had been given by the counselor.
   • Subject: Very good advice to the students - Similar issue as option 3 regarding the subject structure.
   • Verb: had been given (Past perfect passive form) - Incorrect. The original sentence is in the simple past.

Based on the analysis, only option 1 correctly transforms the sentence into the simple past passive voice.

Conclusion

The correct passive form of the sentence "The counselor gave very good advice to the students" is "Very good advice was given to the students by the counselor." This is because the original sentence is in the simple past tense, and the correct passive structure for the simple past uses 'was' or 'were' followed by the past participle of the verb.

Revision Table: Active vs Passive Voice

Additional Information: Voice Change Rules

Understanding voice change involves identifying the verb tense and correctly applying the 'to be' verb and past participle. Remember:

• Only transitive verbs (verbs that take an object) can be changed into the passive voice.
• The tense of the passive sentence must be the same as the tense of the active sentence.
• The preposition 'by' is typically used to introduce the original subject in the passive voice.
• Phrasal verbs also follow these rules; the entire phrasal verb is treated as one unit.
• Sentences with two objects (direct and indirect) can often be changed into the passive voice in two ways, by making either the direct or indirect object the new subject. In this case, "very good advice" (direct object) was made the subject. "The students" (indirect object) could potentially also be made the subject, resulting in "The students were given very good advice by the counselor." Both are grammatically correct passive forms, but only the first option was provided among the choices.