Change the following from active to passive: Historians considered the reforms emblematic of the regime’s insecurity.

Correct — B. The active sentence has an object complement. Historians (subject) considered (verb) the reforms (object) emblematic of the regime’s insecurity (complement).

Object becomes subject: The reforms
Simple past, plural subject: were considered
Complement stays after the verb: emblematic of the regime’s insecurity
Agent goes last: by historians

This version keeps every part → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  The reforms were emblematic of the regime’s insecurity. — Considered is gone. 'The reforms were emblematic' turns the historians' judgement into a plain fact and drops the agent, so it is not the passive of the given verb.
• (c)
  The regime’s insecurity was considered to be shown by reforms. — The wrong noun becomes the subject. The object of considered is the reforms, not the regime’s insecurity. This version also rewrites emblematic of as to be shown by and drops historians.
• (d)
  Emblematic reforms were considered part of regime insecurity. — The meaning changes. Emblematic moves in front of reforms and part of is added, so the reforms become part of the insecurity rather than a sign of it. Historians is dropped.

Verbs such as consider, elect, make and find can take an object plus a complement that describes it: they elected him captain, historians considered the reforms emblematic.

In the passive, the object becomes the subject and the complement stays after the verb: he was elected captain, the reforms were considered emblematic.

The tense moves onto be. Active simple past considered becomes passive were considered, plural to agree with the reforms.

Key facts

• Active: subject + consider + object + complement. Passive: object + be considered + complement + by agent.
• Simple past active becomes was or were + past participle in the passive.
• Emblematic of: serving as a symbol of.

Common traps

• Choosing 'The reforms were emblematic…' because it sounds complete, without checking that considered survived.
• Making insecurity, the noun inside the complement, the new subject instead of the object, the reforms.

No directly related past PYQ was found.