Active to Passive Voice Conversion Explained

The question asks us to convert a sentence from active voice to passive voice. We need to choose the option that correctly transforms the given active sentence.

Understanding the Active Sentence

The original sentence is in the active voice:

"The language, cuisine, attire and music of the British added a new flavour to life in India."

Let's break down its components:

• Subject: The language, cuisine, attire and music of the British
• Verb: added (Simple Past Tense)
• Object: a new flavour to life in India

Rules for Active to Passive Conversion

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

1. The object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence.
2. The verb is changed to its past participle form, preceded by the correct form of the auxiliary verb 'to be' (is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been). For the simple past tense, we use 'was' or 'were'.
3. The subject of the active sentence becomes the object of the preposition 'by' (the agent).

Applying the Conversion Rule

Applying these rules to our sentence:

• The object "a new flavour to life in India" becomes the new subject.
• The verb "added" (Simple Past) changes to "was added" (Simple Past Passive form, using 'was' because the new subject "flavour" is singular).
• The subject "The language, cuisine, attire and music of the British" becomes the agent, preceded by "by".

Therefore, the passive voice sentence should be: "A new flavour to life in India was added by the language, cuisine, attire and music of the British."

Analyzing the Options

• Option 1: "The language, cuisine, attire and music by the British were constantly adding new flavours to life in India."
  • This option changes the verb tense to past continuous ("were constantly adding") and makes "flavour" plural ("flavours"). This is not a correct passive conversion of the original simple past active sentence.
• Option 2: "A new flavour to life in India was added by the language, cuisine, attire and music of the British."
  • This option correctly follows the rules of passive voice conversion. The object has become the subject, the verb is correctly changed to "was added", and the original subject is now the agent introduced by "by". This matches our derived passive sentence.
• Option 3: "The British added a new flavour to life in India with their language, cuisine, attire and music."
  • This sentence is still in the active voice. It rephrases the original sentence but does not convert it into passive voice.
• Option 4: "Life in India got an added flavour from the language, cuisine, attire and music of the British"
  • While this sentence conveys a similar meaning and has a passive sense, the construction "got an added flavour" is not the standard or grammatically precise way to form the passive voice. Option 2 is a more direct and correct passive transformation.

Conclusion

Option 2 is the best choice as it accurately transforms the original active voice sentence into the passive voice, adhering strictly to grammatical rules.