You need to clean your shoes properly.

Which is the correct passive voice of above given sentence among the options given below ?

A) Your shoes are needed by you to clean properly.
B) Your shoes need to be cleaned properly.
C) Your shoes are needed to clean properly.
D) You are needed to clean your shoes properly.

I can rule out option A and C but option b and d are confusing me. Learning from previous examples. e.g. Passive of We must reduce pollution in big cities is *Pollution must be reduced by us in big cities* Option B i.e. *Your shoes need to be cleaned properly* seems more appropriate to me but in the answer key I have option d as answer, perhaps it can be a printing mistake but I am not sure if the solution key is correct or I am, that's the reason I put this question here.


To make the passive, you remove the actor -- "you," and the active verb, "clean."

Your shoes need to be cleaned properly.

So of the choices you presented, B is correct. Although they are still "your shoes," there is no person being told to clean the shoes. That's what passive voice does -- it removes the actor or person performing the action.


D is the only one that explicitly states that "you" are the one that must clean your shoes properly, so it could be correct. The only problem is that a native English speaker wouldn't usually say that. We would actually say B, leaving the by you implicit.

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