It’s a strategic writing book that focuses on grammar structures. This particular unit is on the passive voice.
Turn the active sentences into passive were the directions. Most of them were pretty straightforward; then there was this gem.
“By summer, most students and teachers are ready for the summer vacation.”
There were a few others that were a bit tricky: an object needed to be added and the like. However, I can’t think of an answer that isn’t awkward for this.
I’m missing a eureka moment here.
Circle the right answer:
a) The teacher is really stupid
b) This question shouldn’t be in an intermediate textbook
c) Other
Yeah, I’m struggling with it too. In order to change from the active to the passive, you have to be able to switch the emphasis from the person or thing doing the action to the person or thing being acted upon. I’m not sure what is being acted upon in that example. It seems like nothing. Something explaining why they are ready (such as the completion of work) needs to be added.
Anyway, it’s another example of “English as advanced calculus” in Taiwan where the object of the exercise is not to learn anything remotely useful to 99% of the population, but to show who is a smarty pants and who isn’t. How often do native speakers use the passive? How often do Taiwanese use it, let alone correctly, including the people teaching it? How many Taiwanese can use the simple past or present perfect correctly? Yet they insist on teaching this nonsense to Taiwanese. Many of my students in the 8th grade will study this next semester. Many of my 9th grade students have already studied it. Yet try holding a basic conversation with many of them and it’s a disaster.
Something like “Summer vacation was prepared for by the students by summer”? That’s my guess, especially if the book were written by a Taiwanese person for whom “ready” and “prepare” are interchangeable.
I don’t see any way in which that sentence can be made passive, since the original verb is actually a subjective complement, i.e. auxiliary + participle.
Unless it gets distorted into some BS quasi-literary form, like
“Ready were most students and teachers for the summer vacation, by summer.”
Which is, basically, an asshole-ish manoeuvre and borderline cheat.
Easy:
“By summer, most students and teachers are beed ready for the summer vacation.”
I’m joking.
Maybe it’s a Zen koan: What is the passive-voice form of the verb “to be”?
[Edit: I’ve had to delete my inapposite criticism of the English teaching game here in Taiwan.] Well, you’re going to have to blame the Americans for this one. I just clicked viba’s Amazon.com link to the book. The title of the book is Writing Clearly: An Editing Guide. The co-authors are Janet Lane and Ellen Lange. Both are or were at UC Davis:
[quote]After completing her B.A. in Linguistics and Spanish, M.A. in Linguistics, and Certificate in the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at UC Davis, Lane taught academic English skills at the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, for two years.
Since 1984 Lane has taught a range of courses at UC Davis, including Subject A, first year ESL writing, oral and written English for Education Abroad and international graduate students, and ESL pedagogy courses for Linguistics graduate students. In collaboration with Chemistry faculty, she also co-designed and team-taught a course for international Chemistry TAs.[/quote] academicfederation.ucdavis.edu/lane.cfm
[quote]Ellen Lange is a continuing lecturer in linguistics at the University of California, Davis.[/quote] catesol.org/catnews0408.pdf
I would tell the students that they get minus one point for attempting to answer this question, zero for answering it, and bonus points for creatively-phrased derogatory opinions about the author.
I’m not very observant, but after about eight years of this stuff I’ve managed sometimes to observe, you know, mistakes in exercises, lessons, and tests.
Thx for the input, but I think all the suggestions are more awkward than the original, so I don’t see the point of the exercise - unless it’s to confuse the teachers of course
[quote=“viba”]Turn the active sentences into passive were the directions. Most of them were pretty straightforward; then there was this gem.
“By summer, most students and teachers are ready for the summer vacation.”[/quote]
By summer, most students and teachers have been made ready [by X] for the summer vacation. (?)
Mind you, that’s ugly. Plus, it seems to change the meaning in that it suggests there’s an X involved, which wouldn’t apply for summer vacation. Teachers get students ready for exams, yes. But, uh, May and June get everyone ready for summer vacation?
Note that passive sentences often ARE more awkward, but many people have the general and inaccurate idea that passives are “academic” and formal and therefore good.
The point (such as it is) of the exercise is to identify the verb and convert the sentence into passive voice; thereby demonstrating you can do these two things.
It’s a poorly chosen sentence and being able to convert it is a skill of little or no actual value.
So, yes, it’s a case of question writers doing mental masturbation.
In this particular context, I don’t think ‘ready for’ and ‘well prepared for’ mean the same thing.
A vacation can be something you do when you are sick and tired of what you have been doing. There may not be any actual preparation for the vacation itself, you just stop going to school. You are physically and emotionally prepared to stop going to school. ‘Well prepared for’ generally suggests a focus on the getting ready for the vacation itself.
[quote=“Joschka”]In this particular context, I don’t think ‘ready for’ and ‘well prepared for’ mean the same thing.
A vacation can be something you do when you are sick and tired of what you have been doing. There may not be any actual preparation for the vacation itself, you just stop going to school. You are physically and emotionally prepared to stop going to school. ‘Well prepared for’ generally suggests a focus on the getting ready for the vacation itself.
It’s almost an idiomatic expression.[/quote]
Hence the ‘eagerly awaited’ sentence.
But yeah, a bizarre question, with no cut-and-paste (clear cut?) answer.
You need an object to make any sentence passive. This sentence lacks one, so by definition cannot be made passive. The only very in the sentence is “be”; ready is an adjective/complement.
Which excuse for a book was this, out of curiosity?
I second this explanation.
Try emailing one of the authors (profs at big-time universities are reachable by email) and asking what they think the answer is.
This sounds like what they’re going for. My junior high kids got tons of these ridiculous questions. This is just a case of think like the test preparer, give them the answer they want and move on.
I just clicked 
