SAT Tip: Active Voice vs. Passive Voice
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This tip on improving your SAT score was provided by Vivian Kerr at Veritas Prep.
What does it mean when we say sentences on the SAT should be “active”? A sentence is “active” when the subject of the sentence is doing the action of the verb. The SAT prefers active voice because sentences written actively are more concise, clear, and direct than passive sentences. While passive voice is not strictly grammatically wrong, when you come across a question on the SAT and two answer choices are grammatically correct but one is written using passive voice, choose the one that uses active voice. Here’s a simple example: