Voice and Narration is a high-scoring grammar topic in the Language II paper of JKTET. Questions typically ask you to transform sentences—either from active to passive voice or from direct to indirect speech. Mastering these transformations requires understanding sentence structure, tense changes, and pronoun shifts.
This topic appears reliably in both Paper I (Classes I–V) and Paper II (Classes VI–VIII), usually carrying 3–5 questions. The good news: the rules are finite and predictable. Once you internalise the patterns, you can answer these questions quickly and accurately, freeing time for comprehension passages.
Success here depends on two skills: (1) identifying the subject, verb, and object in active-passive transformations, and (2) applying systematic tense and pronoun shifts in direct-indirect conversions. Both require practice but follow clear, learnable rules.
Key Concepts
**Active Voice**: The subject performs the action. Structure: Subject + Verb + Object. Example: "The teacher praised the student."
**Passive Voice**: The subject receives the action. Structure: Object (becomes subject) + be-verb + past participle + by + agent. Example: "The student was praised by the teacher."
**Direct Speech**: The exact words of the speaker are quoted within inverted commas. Example: He said, "I am going to school."
**Indirect Speech (Reported Speech)**: The speaker's words are reported without quotation marks, with necessary changes in tense, pronoun, and time expressions. Example: He said that he was going to school.
**Reporting Verb**: The verb that introduces the speech (said, told, asked, ordered). It determines whether tense changes are needed.
**Backshift Rule**: When the reporting verb is in the past tense, the tense of the reported speech shifts one step back (present becomes past, past becomes past perfect).
**No Backshift Cases**: Universal truths, habitual facts, and unreal past (wish/if only) do not require tense change.
**Pronoun Changes (based on speaker/listener context):**
I → he/she
We → they
You → he/she/they (context-dependent)
My → his/her
Our → their
**Time/Place Expression Changes:**
Now → then
Today → that day
Tomorrow → the next day
Yesterday → the previous day
Here → there
This → that
These → those
Ago → before
Worked Examples
**Example 1: Active to Passive (Simple Past)**
Active: The children broke the window. Step 1: Identify Object → the window Step 2: Identify Verb → broke (Simple Past) Step 3: Passive auxiliary for Simple Past → was/were Step 4: Past participle of break → broken Step 5: Agent → by the children
Passive: **The window was broken by the children.**
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**Example 2: Active to Passive (Modal)**
Active: They can solve this problem. Step 1: Object → this problem Step 2: Modal → can Step 3: Formula → modal + be + V3
Passive: **This problem can be solved by them.**
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**Example 3: Direct to Indirect (Statement)**
Direct: She said, "I am writing a letter." Step 1: Reporting verb → said (past) → backshift applies Step 2: Change pronoun → I → she Step 3: Change tense → am writing → was writing Step 4: Remove inverted commas, add "that"
Indirect: **She said that she was writing a letter.**
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**Example 4: Direct to Indirect (Question)**
Direct: He asked me, "Where do you live?" Step 1: Reporting verb for question → asked Step 2: Wh-question retains wh-word, remove "do" Step 3: Pronoun → you → I Step 4: Tense → live → lived Step 5: Statement word order (no question mark)
Indirect: **He asked me where I lived.**
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**Example 5: Direct to Indirect (Command/Request)**
Direct: The teacher said, "Open your books." Step 1: Command → use "to + infinitive" Step 2: Reporting verb → ordered/told/asked
Indirect: **The teacher ordered them to open their books.**
Common Mistakes
**Forgetting the "by" agent in passive**: Students write "The letter was written the boy" instead of "The letter was written by the boy." Always include "by" unless the agent is unknown or unimportant.
**Double backshift error**: Some students shift Past Simple to Past Perfect and then try to shift it further. Past Perfect is the endpoint—do not shift "had written" to anything else.
**Using "that" with questions**: In indirect questions, never use "that." Wrong: "He asked that where I lived." Correct: "He asked where I lived."
**Retaining question word order in indirect questions**: Direct questions have inverted order (auxiliary before subject). Indirect questions use statement order. Wrong: "He asked where did I live." Correct: "He asked where I lived."
**Ignoring universal truths**: Statements like "The sun rises in the east" do not change tense even with past reporting verb. Wrong: "He said that the sun rose in the east." Correct: "He said that the sun rises in the east."
**Confusing "say" and "tell"**: "Say" does not take an indirect object directly. Wrong: "He said me that..." Correct: "He told me that..." or "He said to me that..."