The twelve tenses from Level 3 do not go away here. They get acted on. The passive moves the object to the front of the sentence. Reported speech shifts every tense one step back down the same grid. Conditionals stack those tenses into a ladder of likelihood. Four tests you can run on your own, three games, 24 marked exercises and two free PDFs. Suits Grade/Class 9 to 11, Year 10 to 12.
Level 4 is the point where you stop describing a sentence and start rebuilding it. Every device on this page takes a sentence you can already write and changes something about it on purpose. The passive lifts the object to the front and lets the doer disappear. Reported speech takes a sentence somebody said out loud and moves it one step back in time so that you can repeat it later. Conditionals take two ordinary clauses and set the distance between them, from something that is always true down to something that can never happen now. Gerunds, infinitives and phrasal verbs are the smaller machinery that keeps all of it grammatical. None of this is new tense work. It is the twelve tense grid from Level 3 being used, which is why this level goes faster than it looks. Four tests, six worked examples, three games, 24 marked exercises with a progress meter, three riddles and two free printables.
Two of them are Level 3 devices doing a second job. That is deliberate. You already own half of this level.
Every ordinary sentence has three working parts: the one doing it, the action, and the thing it lands on. In the active voice the doer comes first. In the passive voice the thing it lands on comes first, and the doer is either pushed to the back after the word by, or removed from the sentence altogether.
The doer is not lost by accident. Hiding it is usually the reason the writer chose the passive in the first place.
So here is the test. Read the sentence and ask who is doing it. If the answer is sitting at the front, it is active. If the answer is sitting after by, or is nowhere in the sentence, it is passive.
Turning an active sentence around is four steps, always in the same order.
The rule underneath all four steps. Only a verb that carries an object can be turned around, because step 1 has nothing to move otherwise. That is the Level 3 what test doing its second job. Ali kicked the ball can become the ball was kicked. Ali arrived cannot become anything, because arrived what has no answer.
Ali kicked the ball › The ball was kicked. That is a passive, and it is correct.
The bus arrived › The bus was arrived. There is no object to move, so no passive exists.
Why a writer chooses the passive. Three reasons cover almost every real example, and knowing them is worth more in your writing than the transformation drill is.
Nobody can name who did it, so naming them is impossible.
My bicycle was stolen outside the library.
The process is the point, not the person. This is why reports and science writing lean on the passive.
The samples were heated for ten minutes.
Somebody is avoiding blame, or being tactful. Notice this one when you read.
A mistake was made in the timetable.
A be form plus an -ing word is not passive. The passive needs be plus the third form.
She was writing is active. It was written is passive.
The pattern never changes. Put be into the tense you want, then add V3. Only be moves.
| Tense | Active | Passive |
|---|---|---|
| Present simple | She writes the report. | The report is written. |
| Present continuous | She is writing the report. | The report is being written. |
| Present perfect | She has written the report. | The report has been written. |
| Past simple | She wrote the report. | The report was written. |
| Past continuous | She was writing the report. | The report was being written. |
| Past perfect | She had written the report. | The report had been written. |
| Future simple | She will write the report. | The report will be written. |
| Future perfect | She will have written the report. | The report will have been written. |
| Modal | She must write the report. | The report must be written. |
Eight of the twelve tenses take a passive comfortably, plus every modal. The four perfect continuous and future continuous cells are left out of the table on purpose: forms such as will be being written are grammatically possible but so ugly that no examiner wants to read one, and the fix is to rewrite the sentence rather than to force the passive.
Reported speech, also called indirect speech, is repeating what somebody said without using their exact words and without inverted commas. Because the speaking happened before the reporting, everything inside the sentence takes one step back in time. That step is called backshift.
Direct: She said, 'I am waiting.'
Reported: She said she was waiting.
The punctuation, before anything else. Direct speech goes inside inverted commas, with a comma before them and the closing full stop inside them, as in she said, 'I am waiting.' Reported speech takes no inverted commas at all, because the words are no longer being quoted. Losing the inverted commas in a direct sentence and adding them to a reported one are both easy marks to drop. This page uses single inverted commas throughout. Double ones are equally correct, so long as you keep to one kind in a piece of writing.
You do not have to learn a new set of tenses for this. You already have the grid. Every tense simply drops one row.
Past perfect is the bottom of the grid, so it cannot step back any further and stays where it is.
Two other things move, and this is where marks are actually lost.
The people change: I becomes he or she, my becomes his or her, we becomes they.
The time and place words change: today becomes that day, tomorrow becomes the next day, here becomes there.
Direct: Ali said, 'I will finish my project tomorrow.'
Reported: Ali said he would finish his project the next day.
Examiners see the tense shift done correctly and the pronoun shift forgotten far more often than the other way round, which is why one whole round of the Echo game below is about the pronouns and nothing else.
Told needs to be given a person. Said does not take one directly.
He told me he was late. Correct.
He said he was late. Also correct.He said me he was late. Wrong.He told he was late. Wrong.
If you want to name the listener after said, you need to: he said to me that he was late.
If what was said is still true at the moment you report it, both versions are correct. She said the earth goes round the sun and she said the earth went round the sun are both accepted, because the fact has not stopped being true. The same applies to a timetable that has not changed. Every reported question on this page is built so that only one answer works, but in your own writing you have the choice, and taking the backshift is always safe.
A conditional sentence has two halves: an if clause that sets a condition, and a result clause that says what follows. There are four standard patterns, and they are not four random rules. They are one ladder, running from something that is always true down to something that can never happen now.
The thing that confuses everybody, said plainly. Type 2 uses a past form but is not about the past. The past tense here is doing a different job: it measures distance from reality, not distance in time. If I had a car is about right now, and the past form is simply saying that I do not have one.
So here is the test. Do not look at the tenses first. Ask how likely it is, pick your rung, and the ladder hands you the pattern.
Always true, use present and present.
Might well happen, use present and will.
Probably not, use past and would.
Too late now, use past perfect and would have.
Two small rules worth two easy marks. Will never goes inside the if clause, so if it will rain is wrong and if it rains is right. And when the if clause comes first it takes a comma after it, while a sentence starting with the result clause takes no comma at all.
If the bus is late, we will miss the lesson.
We will miss the lesson if the bus is late.
Level 3 taught the after test for tenses: after have, has or had the verb is V3, and after a modal it is the plain form. The same test keeps working here, on two things exam papers ask about constantly.
A gerund is the -ing form of a verb used as a noun, as in swimming is good exercise. An infinitive is the to form, as in I want to swim. Choosing between them is not a matter of taste. The word in front decides.
After any preposition: always -ing.
After some verbs: always -ing.
After other verbs: always to.
at, of, for, about, before, after, without, good at, interested in.
She is good at solving problems. He left without saying goodbye.
Learn these as a short list. They are the ones that get tested.
enjoy, avoid, finish, mind, suggest, practise, keep, admit
Also a short list, and the two lists almost never overlap.
want, decide, hope, promise, refuse, agree, offer, manage
To is a preposition in look forward to and be used to, so it takes -ing there.
I am looking forward to seeing you. Not to see you.
A phrasal verb is a verb plus a small word such as up, off, out or on, where the pair means something you could not work out from the two words separately. Call means telephone. Call off means cancel. There is no rule that predicts the meaning, so these are vocabulary rather than grammar, and they are learned the way vocabulary is learned: in whole sentences, a few at a time.
| Phrasal verb | What it means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| call off | cancel | The umpires called off the match. |
| put off | delay | The head teacher put off the assembly. |
| take off | leave the ground | The plane took off ten minutes late. |
| look forward to | feel glad something is coming | We look forward to the holidays. |
| give up | stop trying | He gave up after the third attempt. |
| turn down | refuse, or reduce | She turned down the offer. |
| carry out | perform, complete | The engineers carried out the repairs. |
| run out of | have none left | We ran out of paper. |
One structural point that is genuinely a rule. Many phrasal verbs can be split, and when the object is a pronoun it has to go in the middle. Called off the match and called the match off are both fine, but called it off is the only correct version with a pronoun. Called off it is never right.
Do not try to take all four topics in one sitting. Voice and reported speech share the same habit of moving parts of a sentence around, so they go well together. Conditionals and the after test are a separate half hour. The worksheet PDF is built in the same four parts for exactly that reason, and it suggests where to stop.
Check the four tests straight away. These can be read on screen, printed, or worked through on paper. Tap Show the answer, and the reason is given every time.
1. Which sentence is in the passive voice?
B. Every paper was marked by the examiner. The object has moved to the front and the doer has been pushed to the back after by. C is active, not passive: was marking is a be form plus an -ing word, and the passive needs be plus the third form.
2. Turn this into the passive. The council repairs the road every spring.
A. The road is repaired every spring. Repairs is present simple, so be goes into the present simple as well and gives is repaired. Only be changes tense. B drags the sentence into the past and C changes it to the continuous.
3. Which sentence cannot be turned into the passive?
B. The bus arrived at nine. Arrived what? Nothing can answer, so there is no object to move to the front. At nine tells you when, not what. Only a verb that carries an object can be turned around.
4. Report this. She said, 'I am waiting outside.'
A. She said she was waiting outside. Present continuous steps back to past continuous, and I becomes she. B leaves the tense where it was and C moves to a tense that is not one step back at all.
5. Which verb fits? He ____ me that the shop closed at six.
B. told Told is given a person directly, and me is sitting right there. Said cannot take a listener without to, so it would have to be he said to me. Spoke needs to as well.
6. Report this. He said, 'I will call you tomorrow.'
B. He said he would call me the next day. Three things move at once. Will steps back to would, I becomes he and you becomes me, and tomorrow becomes the next day because the day being talked about is no longer today.
7. Which type of conditional is this? If I had studied harder, I would have passed.
C. Type 3 Past perfect in the if clause and would have plus the third form in the result clause is the bottom rung. The exam is over and the studying did not happen, so the condition can never be met now.
8. Complete the sentence. If the bus is late, we ____ the first lesson.
B. will miss The if clause is in the present simple, which is the type 1 pattern, so the result clause takes will plus the plain verb. This is a real possibility rather than an imaginary one.
9. Which form fits? She is good at ____ problems quickly.
C. solving At is a preposition, and the verb after a preposition always takes -ing. Run the after test: cover everything except the word immediately in front.
10. What does the phrasal verb call off mean here? The umpires called off the match.
A. cancelled it Call on its own means telephone, but call plus off means cancel, and the meaning of the pair cannot be worked out from the two words separately. That is what makes it a phrasal verb.
Ready for more? The 24 marked exercises further down the page tell you at once whether you are right, and the free worksheet PDF has 54 questions in four parts with a full answer key.
The part that has been moved or changed is highlighted, with the working underneath. Cover the working and see whether you get there first.
The new bridge is being tested by the engineers.
Start with the doer test. Who is doing it? The engineers, and they are sitting at the back after by, so this is passive. The active version was the engineers are testing the new bridge, present continuous, so be went into the present continuous as well and became is being. Then V3, tested.
My bicycle was stolen outside the library.
Ask who is doing it and nothing answers, which is the whole point. Nobody knows who took it, so there is no doer to put after by. This is the commonest kind of real passive, and turning it back into one active sentence is impossible, because the missing information cannot be invented.
She said she had finished the report.
The direct version was she said, 'I have finished the report.' Present perfect steps back one row to past perfect, so has finished becomes had finished, and I becomes she. Nothing else in the sentence needs to move.
He told me he would send the file the next day.
The direct version was he said to me, 'I will send the file tomorrow.' Told is used because a person is named straight after it. Will steps back to would, I becomes he, and tomorrow becomes the next day because the day in question has already gone past.
If I had her number, I would ring her now.
The word now proves this is about the present, yet the if clause is in the past simple. That is the type 2 pattern, and the past form is measuring distance from reality rather than distance in time. It is saying that I do not have her number.
The match was called off, so we are looking forward to playing next week.
Two devices in one sentence. Called off is a phrasal verb meaning cancelled, sitting inside a passive with the doer hidden, because who cancelled it does not matter. Then look forward to is one of the cases where to is a preposition, so the verb after it takes -ing and not the infinitive.
No score here and no pressure. Name the device first, then apply it. Press Hint whenever you are stuck.
A sentence appears with an instruction above it. Sometimes you are turning an active sentence into the passive, sometimes you are turning a passive one back into the active. Sixty seconds. Three correct in a row doubles your points and the combo climbs to four times, and a wrong tap costs three seconds.
Twelve rounds, and two kinds of question. Some rounds give you the exact words and ask for the report. Others give you the report and ask which of three speakers could have said it, which is really a test of the pronouns rather than the tense. That is the half most people forget.
Press Start to play
Read the sentence and decide how likely it is, from always true at the top down to impossible now at the bottom. The rung you pick lights up, so you can see the ladder you are climbing. Twelve rounds.
Press Start and read carefully.
No bolts drawn yet. Each one is drawn back when its part of the exercises is finished.
Four parts, six questions each, one part per dial. Every right answer earns 25 XP, which is simply a points score for this level, and fills the bar above until the badges unlock. A wrong answer costs nothing, so try again.
Think first, then tap to check.
I lift the object to the front of the sentence and let the doer slip away out of the back. Only a verb carrying an object can invite me in, and writers reach for me when they would rather not say who did it. What am I?
The passive voice.
Every tense I touch takes one step back down the grid. Present becomes past, past becomes past perfect, and will becomes would. I do it for a simple reason: the words were spoken before you repeated them. What am I?
Backshift, the one step back rule in reported speech.
I am the bottom rung. My condition cannot be met any more, because the moment for it has already gone, so I always arrive carrying had in one half and would have in the other. Which type am I?
The type 3 conditional, the impossible one.
In the active voice the person or thing doing the action comes first: the examiner marked every paper. In the passive voice the thing the action lands on comes first, and the doer either moves to the back after the word by or disappears completely: every paper was marked, or every paper was marked by the examiner. The passive is built from a form of be plus the third form of the verb, and only be changes tense. Neither voice is better English. The passive is the right choice when the doer is unknown, unimportant or being kept out of it.
Four steps, always in the same order. Find the object by saying the verb and asking what. Move that object to the front so it becomes the new subject. Put be into the same tense the original verb was in, then add the third form of the main verb. Finally decide whether to keep the doer after by or to drop it. The step that catches people is the third one, because the tense has to stay where it was: repairs gives is repaired, repaired gives was repaired, and will repair gives will be repaired.
Any verb that does not take an object, which grammar calls an intransitive verb. Arrive, sleep, come, go, fall and die are common examples. The passive works by moving the object to the front of the sentence, so if there is no object there is nothing to move and no passive exists. The bus arrived at nine has no passive, because arrived what cannot be answered. This is the same what test taught in Level 3, being used for a second purpose here.
Reported speech, also called indirect speech, is repeating what somebody said without their exact words and without inverted commas. Three things change at once. Every tense steps one row back down the grid, so present becomes past, past becomes past perfect and will becomes would. The people change, so I becomes he or she and my becomes his or her. Time and place words change, so tomorrow becomes the next day and here becomes there. Students usually manage the tense and forget the pronouns, which is where marks go.
Told is given a person straight after it, and said is not. He told me he was late is correct, and so is he said he was late, but he said me he was late and he told he was late are both wrong. If you want to name the listener after said, you have to add to: he said to me that he was late. It is a small rule that costs a mark every time it is broken, and it is worth saying both correct versions out loud until they sound normal.
They are one ladder of decreasing likelihood rather than four separate rules. Type 0 is always true and uses present with present: if you heat water to 100 degrees, it boils. Type 1 is a real possibility and uses present with will: if it rains, we will move indoors. Type 2 is imaginary and about now, and uses past with would: if I had a car, I would drive you home. Type 3 is impossible because the moment has gone, and uses past perfect with would have. The past form in type 2 measures distance from reality, not distance in time.
The word immediately in front decides, exactly as it did for tenses in Level 3. After any preposition the verb always takes -ing, so it is good at solving and without saying. After enjoy, avoid, finish, mind, suggest and practise the verb takes -ing. After want, decide, hope, promise, refuse and agree it takes to. The trap worth learning by heart is look forward to and be used to, where to is a preposition rather than part of an infinitive, so both take -ing: I am looking forward to seeing you.
Yes. There are two free PDFs on this page. The worksheet has a lesson recap, practice in four parts and a full answer key at the back, with 54 marks in total. The active to passive chart walks one sentence across every tense that takes a passive comfortably on the first page, gives a blank grid to fill in from memory on the second, and prints the filled grid with the tense names on the third, so it works as a revision poster and as a test. There is no sign up and no fee, and teachers may print class sets.
It matches Grade 9 to Grade 11 in the United States and Canada, Year 10 to Year 12 in the United Kingdom, and Class 9 to Class 11 in Pakistan and India. It is written with Cambridge IGCSE English as a Second Language, syllabus 0510 and 0511, in mind. Two things on this page are named in that syllabus content: conditional forms, and phrasal verbs within the lexical structures it lists. Active and passive voice and reported speech are not listed there as topics. They are here because they carry the range and the accuracy marks in the writing and speaking criteria, which is a different reason and an honest one.
Numrahedu is an independent educational resource and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Cambridge Assessment International Education. Board names and syllabus codes are used here only to describe the courses these free materials support. All explanations, questions, games and worksheets on this page are original work produced by Numrahedu, and no question paper or mark scheme material is reproduced anywhere on this site. Cambridge publishes its own past papers, examiner reports and specimen papers for syllabus 0510, and they are free to download from the Cambridge International past papers page.