Before you look at this lesson, make sure you are comfortable with making the present perfect, the past perfect and the future perfect active forms. You should also read about simple passives first. Then. when you have finished looking at the lesson below, try these perfect passives practice exercises.

Using passives with perfect verb forms

Active perfect verb forms

All perfect forms are made with have + past participle.

Tom has cleaned the bathroom three times this week. (before now)

Tom had cleaned the bathroom by the time I got home. (before the past)

Tom will have cleaned the bathroom by the time the guests arrive. (before the future)

Passive perfect verb forms

We make passives with be (in the correct tense) + the past participle (the third form of the verb, e.g. break - broke- broken). So you need to change be to the present perfect (has been), past perfect (had been) or future perfect (will have been) and then add the past participle.of your main verb.

Present perfect passive

My hotel room has been cleaned every day this week.

Past perfect passive

My hotel room had been cleaned by lunchtime

Future perfect passive

My hotel room will have been cleaned before we get back tonight.

 

When to use passives

Remember, we use passive forms when we don't know or don't care who did something, when it is obvious who did something, or when we want to focus on the object of the active sentence. For example, both of these sentences are grammatically correct:

Oh no! I think a thief has stolen my bag! (active)

Oh no! I think my bag's been stolen! (passive)

However, the second one is better because obviously a thief did it, we don't know who the thief is, and your bag is very important to you!


Now try these perfect passives practice exercises.