Academic writing style

Exercise 2: Passives

Passives.

Rewrite the underlined parts of these sentences. Instead of using 'people', 'somebody', or 'they', write a passive sentence with an appropriate verb form.

Example: We can solve the problem. The problem can be solved.

1. Prices are stable and we maintain them in this way over generations.
2. We define tropical forests here as 'evergreen or partly evergreen forests'.
3. Scientists distinguish methane because it has a large number of significant sources.
4. They reformed the old dilator procedure in 1852.
5. In 1916 the government passed the Disease Regulations.
6. It was only in the 1930s, in Oxford, that researchers isolated and crystallised lysozyme.
7. The recent local crime surveys replicate these findings.
8. Everybody eventually generally accepted the date 753 BC.
9. We next consider a range of rival theories.
10. The rules require the subject to answer if the statement is true or false.
11. The examiners should conduct the examination in the greatest possible privacy.
12. We will confine the discussion to general principles of treatment.
13. The researchers transcribed many genes and synthesise many proteins.
14. A further class of solutions in which they separate the main equation in yet another way has been given by Yurtse.

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