General English Level 5 GELEV5 Unit 04 Topic 01.doc  WRITING 05 The passive – past tense How well do you know how to use the passive in the past? 1. Read the story. Note that there are some words left out. 2. Where there is part of a sentence missing, use the verb in brackets to complete it. 3. For questions 1 to 8, write your answer in the spaces provided. 4. In the first paragraph, there is an example to help you. Bert was on holiday at the seaside. One morning, lying in bed watching TV, he was surprised to see his colleague Ernie on the news. There were police officers in the background, and a reporter was asking him what had happened. Ernie was saying: “One of the bank tellers (example) [hold up] was held up by a man wearing a balaclava.” It was clear to Bert that the bank where he worked had been robbed. Bert immediately called Ernie and said: “Ernie, it’s Bert here. I’ve just seen you on the news! What happened? Nobody (1) [injure] ______________________, right?” “Bert! You’re a lucky man, on holiday today! We’re all a bit shaken by the whole thing, but it has turned out okay. Bob saw the man wearing a balaclava, and knew what to do straight away, so the police (2) [notify] ___________________________ at once. They arrived outside the bank within three minutes. Of course, by that time, the guy in the balaclava had run away but one policeman chased him down the road and he (3) [catch] ______________________ outside the fruit shop!” Bert replied: “I’m so relieved no-one (4) [hurt] ___________________________.” When Bert arrived back at work after his holiday, Ernie told him more about what happened after the robbery. “I (5) [interview] _______________________ by four television reporters, and the security officer (6) [take] __________________________ to hospital suffering from nervous shock. We all came back to work the next day, but we (7) [send] ___________________________ home again to recover from the excitement. All of us (8) [give] ___________________________ a week off.” “Almost as good as a holiday,” thought Bert. 120 QUESTLANGUAGE