Question

Change into passive voice? She murdered the thieves who broke into her house.

She murdered the thieves who broke into her house.

(A) The thieves had been murdered by her who broke into her house.

(A) The thieves who broke into her house had been murdered by her.

(A) The thieves were murdered by her who broke into her house.

(A) The thieves who broke into her house were murdered by her.

Answer 1

The thieves who broke into her house were murdered by her.

Explanation:

Before getting into which sentence is best, let's first talk about passive voice. One way of thinking of it is that in active voice, like the original sentence She murdered the thieves who broke into her house, we have a Subject Doing an Action. In passive voice, we have a Subject Having Something Happen to Them/It.

Active - She killed.
Passive - Thieves were murdered.

And then the rest of the sentence will go on to flesh out more detail.

So now on to our four choices. Of the four, it's the last one that works:

The thieves who broke into her house were murdered by her

Let's compare this to the other choices. The first choice:

The thieves had been murdered by her who broke into her house.

Two problems here:

• The thieves had been murdered - which sounds like the thieves were dead before breaking into the house, and
• by her who broke into her house - which sounds like the woman who killed the thieves broke into her own house.

The other two choices each have one of these defects.