PSLE Synthesis: A Proven 5-step Method to Conquer Active/Passive Voice Questions!

If you are not 100% certain as to how you should tackle this question, then this blog post is right up your alley. Indeed, many students struggle with answering the active/passive voice question type in the Synthesis section confidently. Do you want to hear the good news? We have a tried and tested 5-step method to help you secure full marks for this question type! Read on to find out more!

Step 1: Highlight and label the tense in the given question

With that, we know that we have to use the present tense in our answer.

Step 2: Write down possible options for helping verbs

In the passive voice, we will always have to add a helping verb. The helping verbs could be:

1. has / have / had

2. is / are / was / were

For the example we are working on, we ought to use is/are/was/were. Since we know that the answer must be in present tense, we can sieve out the two possible options: is/ are.

Step 3: Check for agreement in the new sentence

Now, in order to pick the correct helping verb, we will have to check for agreement (singular/plural) in the new sentence, which is the sentence we have to write.

Step 4: Pick the correct helping verb to answer

Since “the baby” in the new sentence is singular, we have to pick the singular verb!

Step 5: Write the new sentence (change verb to participle + push agent to the back)

At last, we can write our answer out! Here, the agent refers to the “by (doer of the action)” phrase. Remember to also change the verb to its participle form!

Tip: Do not forget to include the phrase “some milk”. Some students may be so focused on getting the tense and agreement correct, they forget to include important details in their answers! Hence, always tick the words in the question to check that you have included all the necessary information in your answer.

Some extra notes for you:

Now, do you feel more confident handling the active/passive voice question type? While it may seem like there are many steps involved, practice makes perfect! As long as you practise this 5-step method faithfully and learn your participles well, you will become the Active/Passive Voice Master in no time.

Course Features:

1. 30 over bite-sized video lessons! (On Golden Rules for synthesis and focused question types)

2. Unique strategies to tackle a wide range of synthesis question types e.g. Active/Passive voice, Direct/Indirect Speech, No sooner had… than… etc.

3. Categorisation of question types to help pupils better remember common strategies to be applied e.g. Despite/In spite of/ Due to/ Owing to

4. Targeted at all pupils who are preparing to be PSLE ready (Or just anyone who wishes to be more skilful in manipulating sentences!)