Understanding Passive Voice Conversion

The question asks us to convert a given active sentence into its correct passive form. The original sentence is: "My brother picked up my friend from the airport."

Analyzing the Active Sentence

Let's break down the active sentence:

• Subject: My brother (the doer of the action)
• Verb: picked up (This is in the Past Simple tense)
• Object: my friend (the receiver of the action)
• Adverbial Phrase: from the airport (provides additional information)

In the active voice, the subject performs the action.

Converting to Passive Voice (Past Simple)

To change an active sentence in the Past Simple tense to passive voice, we follow these steps:

1. Make the object of the active sentence the new subject of the passive sentence.
2. Use the Past Simple form of the verb 'to be' (was or were) followed by the past participle of the main verb.
3. Introduce the original subject using the preposition 'by' (this is called the agent). This step is optional if the agent is unknown or unimportant.
4. Include any other parts of the sentence, like adverbial phrases.

Applying the Steps

Let's apply these steps to "My brother picked up my friend from the airport.":

• New Subject: The object is "my friend". So, "My friend" becomes the new subject.
• Passive Verb Form: The active verb is "picked up" (Past Simple). The verb 'to be' in Past Simple for a singular subject ("My friend") is "was". The past participle of "pick up" is "picked up". So, the passive verb phrase is "was picked up".
• Agent: The original subject is "My brother". We introduce this with 'by': "by my brother".
• Adverbial Phrase: "from the airport" remains in the sentence.

Putting it all together, the passive sentence is: "My friend was picked up by my brother from the airport."

Evaluating the Options

Now let's look at the provided options:

• Option 1: My friend was picked up by my brother from the airport.

  This matches the passive sentence we constructed. It uses the correct new subject ("My friend"), the correct passive verb form for Past Simple ("was picked up"), and correctly includes the agent ("by my brother") and the adverbial phrase ("from the airport").

• Option 2: My friend has been picked up by my brother from the airport.

  This sentence uses the Present Perfect passive ("has been picked up"). The original sentence was in the Past Simple ("picked up"), so the passive form must also reflect the Past Simple tense. This option uses the wrong tense.

• Option 3: My friend has picked up my brother from the airport.

  This sentence is in the active voice (subject "My friend" performing the action "has picked up" on the object "my brother"). It also reverses the roles from the original sentence. This is incorrect.

• Option 4: My brother was picked up by my friend from the airport.

  This sentence is in the passive voice, but it uses "My brother" as the new subject and "by my friend" as the agent. This reverses the meaning of the original sentence, where 'My brother' did the picking up and 'my friend' was picked up. This is incorrect.

Based on the analysis, Option 1 is the only correct passive form of the given sentence.

Revision Table: Past Simple Active vs. Passive

Additional Information on Passive Voice

The passive voice is often used when:

• The action is more important than the doer (e.g., "The bridge was built in 1950").
• The doer is unknown, unimportant, or obvious from the context (e.g., "My wallet was stolen").
• You want to shift the focus of the sentence (as in this example, focusing on "my friend" being picked up).

In the Past Simple passive, we use 'was' for singular subjects (I, he, she, it, singular nouns) and 'were' for plural subjects (we, you, they, plural nouns).