Six Marked Errors - Which Are Really Errors?
A grammar worksheet returned by a substitute teacher has six sentences marked wrong, and the class is arguing about them. The sentences are:
(i) Last Monday our class visit the science museum. (ii) The teacher said that she will inform us earlier next time. (iii) A working model of the solar system was made by our science club last year. (iv) We reached at the museum by nine o'clock. (v) Each of the students were given a badge. (vi) We enjoyed very much.
The substitute has marked all six as errors and has also written 'use active voice' beside (iii). Suman argues that (iii) cannot be an error, since the passive is 'allowed'. The class teacher, with the examination three weeks away, wants students to understand the difference between a rule that has been broken and a choice that has been made.
1. Sort the six items into genuine errors and non-errors, and state the rule for each genuine error in one line.
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Genuine errors: (i), (ii), (iv), (v), (vi).
(i) visit → visited. A finished past time marker ('Last Monday') requires past simple. (ii) will → would. Reported speech after a past reporting verb backshifts the modal. (iv) reached at → reached. 'Reach' is transitive; it takes a direct object, like 'enter' and 'discuss', and unlike 'arrive at'. (v) were → was. 'Each of + plural noun' is singular in number. (vi) enjoyed → enjoyed ourselves. In this sense 'enjoy' needs a reflexive object; without it the verb is incomplete.
Not an error: (iii). The passive is fully grammatical here, and the model is a perfectly good subject. The substitute's 'use active voice' is a stylistic preference, not a rule. If the marking scheme is being fair, (iii) should be unmarked - or credited as correct, with the active version offered as an alternative.
2. How would you answer Suman's point about (iii) without simply siding with the student against the teacher?
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Concede the half that is true, then draw the line. Suman is right that passives are not errors; they are a resource, used when the doer is unknown, unimportant, or already the topic. A sentence can be fully grammatical and still be the weaker choice.
What would make (iii) genuinely wrong: an agent that cannot perform the action ('the model was made by last year' - no), a dropped auxiliary ('the model made by our club'), or a tense mismatch with the time marker. None of these applies.
What makes it merely weaker: the doer is known and short ('our science club'), so the active version - Our science club made a working model of the solar system last year - is tighter and puts the actor in the subject slot where the reader expects it. So the correction is not 'passive is wrong' but 'when you know who did it and the doer matters, lead with the doer'. That distinction is itself a likely examination point in the transformation question.
3. Item (vi) - 'We enjoyed very much' - is the one students dispute most. How do you demonstrate that it is an error rather than a matter of taste?
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Use substitution and contrast. 'Enjoy' belongs to the small group of verbs that require an object in this sense - like 'avail', 'absent', 'pride', 'behave'. We say enjoyed the film, enjoyed the food, and when no external object exists we supply a reflexive one: enjoyed ourselves. Compare They behaved well/They behaved themselves, She availed the offer (wrong)/She availed herself of the offer.
Then give the minimal pair: We enjoyed the trip very much is fine, because 'the trip' fills the object slot. We enjoyed very much has an empty slot after a transitive verb, which is why it sounds unfinished to a fluent ear. That is a structural gap, not a stylistic preference.
Finally, name the examination risk: transformation items frequently turn on exactly these verbs, and a student who treats the reflexive as optional will lose marks in two sections at once - grammar and letter writing.