Active and passive voice, modal verbs
Tests: 1 of 11 right · Exam: 1 of 4 right · Kind: ★★ · Understood: 3 of 15 · Run: 2026-10-18, commit f3c23ea72
Lesson 32 of the english course of Mova's primary school, as Mova's small model took its tests: it had read this lesson and the ones before it and learned from their exercises. Each test shows the options in the order the student saw them, its choice, the right answer, the score of every option and why it chose. The lesson itself, sentence by sentence with trees and pragmatics: the lesson in the corpora.
Every question of this lesson and each of its options parsed by Mova, with trees and pragmatics: the lesson's questions in the corpora.
Test 1 · ★★ · wrong ✗
Your mate goes "passive is lazy, teachers hate it, no cap." ("No cap" means for real.) What is true?
- 1. It means the sentence has no verb at all — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. It is only used in poems about the past — no support
- 3. It is useful when the doer is unknown or not important — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 4. It is always wrong and loses marks in every test — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 2 · ★★ · wrong ✗
★★★ "The cake was eaten." How many people could have eaten it, from the sentence alone?
- 1. Nobody — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Exactly two — no support
- 3. We cannot tell — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 4. Exactly one — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 3 · ★★ · wrong ✗
★★★ Turn into the active: "The trophy was won by our class."
- 1. The trophy won our class. — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. Our class won the trophy. — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. Our class was won by the trophy. — no support
- 4. Our class wins the trophy. — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 4 · ★★ · wrong ✗
In a cartoon, a villain says "The bank has been robbed... by someone!" Why is it funny?
- 1. Villains are not allowed to use "by" — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. He forgot how to say "bank" properly — no support
- 3. He uses the wrong tense on purpose — no support
- 4. The passive lets him hide that it was him — ✓ the right answer · no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 5 · ★★ · wrong ✗
What would happen if Mum turned "You must go to bed" into "You might go to bed"?
- 1. It would turn an order into a maybe — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. It would change it to the past tense — ← Mova's choice · score 4
- 3. It would make it a stronger order — score 4
- 4. It would mean the same thing exactly — no support
Why: It took the question to ask what happens next. It chose option 2 with score 4, tied with another option at 4 (the first shown, or the one claiming less beyond what it knows, wins). Its support: lesson 31, line 12: «In a piece of writing, keep the same tense unless the time really changes; "I was tired, so I'm going to bed" changes on purpose, because the bed is now.», reached through what followed the sentence the question matched. What matched: the same action «change» (+4). The right option, 1, found no support in what it remembers. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 6 · ★★ · wrong ✗
Gen Alpha cousin: "lowkey the window got smashed, it wasn't me fr." ("fr" means for real, "lowkey" means a bit secretly.) What is the formal passive?
- 1. The window has smashing. — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. The window were smash. — no support
- 3. The window was smashed. — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 4. The window smashed by me. — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 7 · ★★ · wrong ✗
A gran in Cornwall: "Ee could've 'elped, my lover." ("My lover" is a friendly word there.) What does "could have helped" suggest?
- 1. He definitely helped yesterday — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. He was able to help but didn't — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. He is helping right now — no support
- 4. He will help next week — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 8 · ★★ · wrong ✗
★★★ Which change does NOT keep the same tense?
- 1. "The dog has eaten the bone" becomes "The bone has been eaten by the dog" — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. "The dog eats the bone" becomes "The bone was eaten by the dog" — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. "The dog ate the bone" becomes "The bone was eaten by the dog" — no support
- 4. "The dog eats the bone" becomes "The bone is eaten by the dog" — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 9 · ★★ · wrong ✗
Ellie in Texas: "Y'all should've told me!" ("Y'all" means you all.) Which modal is she using?
- 1. all — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. me — no support
- 3. should — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 4. told — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 10 · ★★ · wrong ✗
Which sentence is the strongest order?
- 1. You might leave now. — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. You could leave now. — no support
- 3. You may leave now. — no support
- 4. You must leave now. — ✓ the right answer · no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Test 11 · ★★ · right ✓
Formal letter from the council: "Bins shall be put out on Tuesday." What does "shall" do here?
- 1. It states a rule, like "must" — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · score 5
- 2. It shows the past — score 5
- 3. It asks a polite question — no support
- 4. It shows a guess — score 5
Why: It took the question to ask what is done. It chose option 1 with score 5, tied with another option at 5 (the first shown, or the one claiming less beyond what it knows, wins). Its support: lesson 1, line 1: «Every letter has a name and a sound. The name is what you sing in the alphabet song («ess», «bee», «see»); the sound is what the letter says inside a word (/s/…», reached through the option's own match among the sentences about the question's things. What matched: the same doer «letter» (+2); it fills the role the question asks for (+2); the same action «say» (+1). · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Exam question 1 · formal language · wrong ✗
Identify the sentence composed in the passive voice.
- 1. Grandad is posting the letter. — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. The letter was posted by Grandad. — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. Grandad posted the letter. — no support
- 4. Grandad will post the letter. — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Exam question 2 · formal language · wrong ✗
Ascertain the passive form, in the identical tense, of the sentence "The dog ate the cake".
- 1. The cake is eaten by the dog. — ← Mova's choice · score 9
- 2. The cake will be eaten by the dog. — score 9
- 3. The cake was eaten by the dog. — ✓ the right answer · score 9
- 4. The cake has been eating by the dog. — score 7
Why: It took the question to ask which statement is true. It chose option 1 with score 9, tied with another option at 9 (the first shown, or the one claiming less beyond what it knows, wins). Its support: lesson 27, line 1: «Every word in a sentence has a job, and the job is its word class. In «The hungry fox quickly ate the cake under the table», fox and cake and table are nouns (…», reached through the remembered sentence the question matched. What matched: the same action «eat» (+5); the same thing acted on «cake» (+4). The right option, 3, scored 9. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Exam question 3 · formal language · right ✓
Which of the following most accurately characterises the principal reason for the use of the passive in scientific reports?
- 1. The action is of greater importance than the agent — ← Mova's choice · ✓ the right answer · no support
- 2. It renders the report considerably shorter — no support
- 3. The agent is invariably unknown to the author — no support
- 4. It is the sole grammatical form permitted — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
Exam question 4 · formal language · wrong ✗
Select the modal verb expressing the lowest degree of certainty.
- 1. shall — ← Mova's choice · no support
- 2. might — ✓ the right answer · no support
- 3. will — no support
- 4. must — no support
Why: No option found support in what it remembers, so it guessed: it took the first option shown. · the question and its options parsed, with trees and pragmatics
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/