What\u2019s the difference between these two sentences?<\/p>\n
He spoke clearly, articulating the points of his plan.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n The points of his plan were articulated in his clear speech.<\/em><\/p>\n The first sentence is written in the active voice, and the second is written in the passive voice.\u00a0 In the first sentence above, the subject is \u201che,\u201d and the verb is \u201cspoke.\u201d\u00a0 In the second sentence, the subject is \u201cthe points of his plan\u201d and the verb is \u201cwere articulated.\u201d \u00a0When writing in the active voice, the subject of the sentence is performing the action; in the passive voice, the subject of the sentence is the object of an action. Distinguishing between passive and active voices can be tricky, but it\u2019s worth some practice. \u00a0This is because sometimes, on GMAT Sentence Corrections, you will narrow the choices down to two correct answers.\u00a0 Both are grammatically sound, and you end up guessing because you can\u2019t think of any good reason to reject either of them.\u00a0 That\u2019s a frustrating situation, and often the difference between the two answer choices comes down to passive and active voices.<\/p>\n Passive and active voices are troubling for some test-takers, because their application seems to be random; sometimes, the credited answer to a Sentence Correction will be in the passive voice, but other times, a choice will be eliminated for being in the passive voice.\u00a0 How can you tell when it matters and when it doesn\u2019t?\u00a0 Generally speaking, the GMAT favors the active voice.\u00a0 Sentences written in the passive voice can still be correct, though, if every other choice has a grammatical flaw.\u00a0 Passive voice should never be used to eliminate an answer in your first glance through the choices.\u00a0 However, if you\u2019ve narrowed the answers down to two grammatically correct options, and the ONLY difference is that one is active and the other is passive, then<\/em> you can eliminate the passive choice.<\/p>\n Basically, the use of the passive voice isn\u2019t considered an error in GMAT Sentence Corrections.\u00a0 It\u2019s more of a style issue.\u00a0 The GMAT favors concise writing: statements are ideally made as succinctly as possible.\u00a0 The use of the passive voice tends to clutter sentences up, making them lengthier and more complicated than necessary.\u00a0 But if every other choice has definite error\u2014incorrect pronoun usage, subject-verb disagreement, or a misplaced modifier, for instance\u2014a choice using the passive voice can be correct.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at an example:<\/p>\n According to the manager, his plan could be successfully implemented by all of the company\u2019s branch offices before the end of the fiscal year.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n A.\u00a0 his plan could be successfully implemented by all of the company\u2019s branch offices before the end of the fiscal year.<\/em><\/p>\n B.\u00a0 his plan being the subject of successful implementation by all of the company\u2019s branch offices before the end of the fiscal year.<\/em><\/p>\n C.\u00a0 his plan could be successfully implemented by all of their branch offices before the end of the fiscal year.<\/em><\/p>\n D.\u00a0 the company\u2019s branch offices successfully implementing his plan before the end of the fiscal year.<\/em><\/p>\n E.\u00a0 the company\u2019s branch offices could be successfully implemented to his plan before the end of the fiscal year.<\/em><\/p>\n In this Sentence Correction, the sentence as written displays the passive voice, although it is otherwise correct. \u00a0Each of the other choices has a distinct error: choice B uses \u201cbeing,\u201d which is virtually never correct on the GMAT; choice C replaces \u201cthe company\u2019s\u201d with \u201ctheir,\u201d a possessive pronoun with no clear antecedent in the sentence; choice D\u2019s use of the gerund creates a sentence fragment; choice E uses an incorrect idiom.\u00a0 Therefore, the passive construction is correct.\u00a0 However, an active construction would be the preferred style, and that would look like this:<\/p>\n According to the manager, all of the company\u2019s branch offices could successfully implement his plan before the end of the fiscal year.<\/em><\/p>\n When it comes to dealing with passive and active voices on the GMAT, think of this style issue as your second line of defense.\u00a0 Real grammatical errors should be the first thing that you address when you\u2019re going through the answers and eliminating them, but in the event of a tie, the use of passive voice can be a tie-breaker.\u00a0 This should help you recognize when the use of passive voice matters to you in choosing an answer, and when it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What\u2019s the difference between these two sentences? He spoke clearly, articulating the points of his plan. The points of his plan were articulated in his clear speech. The first sentence…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2177"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2418,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177\/revisions\/2418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}