Convert the sentence provided below from its passive voice structure to an active voice structure: A letter is written to the editor by the citizen every week.

Correct — B. The passive verb is written is simple present: is + past participle. So the active must be simple present too.

The agent after by, the citizen, becomes the subject. The passive subject, a letter, becomes the object. To the editor and every week keep their places.

The citizen is third person singular, so the verb takes -s: writes. That gives "The citizen writes a letter to the editor every week" — option (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  The editor writes a letter to the citizen every week. — The editor writes a letter to the citizen swaps the two people. In the passive the citizen is the writer, by the citizen, and the editor is the recipient, to the editor.
• (c)
  The editor wrote a letter every week. — The editor wrote changes both the doer and the tense. Is written is simple present, so the active needs writes, and the citizen does the writing, not the editor.
• (d)
  The citizen has been writing letters to the editor weekly. — has been writing is present perfect continuous, and letters is plural where the passive has a letter. Simple present is written becomes writes, nothing longer.

Changing voice keeps the tense and the roles. Only the order moves: the doer in the by-phrase becomes the active subject.

Simple present passive is is/are + past participle. Its active is the plain verb, with -s for a singular subject: is written by the citizen → the citizen writes.

Everything else — a letter, to the editor, every week — keeps its meaning. An option that changes who writes, the tense or the number of letters is a different sentence.

Key facts

• Simple present passive: is/are + past participle (is written).
• In the active, the agent of the by-phrase becomes the subject: by the citizen → The citizen.
• A third-person singular subject takes -s in the simple present: The citizen writes.

Common traps

• Swapping the writer and the recipient, as option (a) does, because both names stay in the sentence
• Choosing a tense that sounds natural for a weekly habit, such as has been writing, instead of the tense the passive gives

No directly related past PYQ was found.