Passive Questions
Level B1 · Passive Voice
Passive questions ask about an action without naming who does or did it, just like passive statements — the object of the active sentence becomes the subject, and the auxiliary (be/have) inverts with that subject to form the question. Was the cake eaten? asks about the cake, not about who ate it; Has the report been finished? asks about the report, not about who finished it.
How to form a passive question:
- Yes/no passive question: auxiliary (is/are/was/were/has/have) + subject + past participle: Was the window broken? Has the letter been sent? Is the room being cleaned?
- Wh- passive question: wh-word + auxiliary + subject + past participle: When was the bridge built? Who was the letter written by? What has been decided?
- For present/past simple passives, do/does/did are never used — the auxiliary is always a form of be: Was the cake eaten? (not Did the cake eaten? or Did the cake be eaten?).
- The by + agent phrase can still appear at the end of a passive question when the doer matters: Who was the award given to? / By whom was the award given? (the second is more formal).
The most common mistake is adding do/does/did to a passive question that already has be as its auxiliary — Did the window was broken? is wrong; the be verb itself inverts with the subject: Was the window broken? A second mistake is forgetting the past participle and leaving only the base or past-tense verb — Was the window break? or Was the window broke? are both wrong; the passive always needs the past participle: Was the window broken?
Look for a form of be (or have, for perfect passives) inverted with the subject, followed directly by a past participle, with no separate do/does/did — that's a passive question. Check whether the question is asking about the receiver of an action (the thing that had something done to it) rather than the doer; if so, it's likely passive.