When is the appropriate time to use passive sentences?

One good example is to avoid blame, or at least to lessen the obviousness of it. For examples, someone might say, "Mistakes were made" instead of "I made a mistake. "Also, the passive voice could be used to take the focus off the subject and onto what is more important.

Example: "Every student was given a chance to improve his or her grade. " That's passive. Active would be "The teacher gave every student a chance to improve his or her grade."

The point is that every student got a chance. Using the active voice with "the teacher" puts the focus back on the teacher and how great it is that he or she gave the students a chance, when what we really want to focus on is that they got the chance, regardless of who gave it to them. Did I explain that okay?

Thank you Victoria. Yes your answer was very helpful.

Good answer, Victoria. I wouldn't have thought of some of those. Otherwise, when you learn a different language you usually learn more about grammar in English.So basically, the time I came across the passive the most when studying Spanish was when describing historical facts, etc. E.g.

"fue construida en..." means "It was constructed in...". This example is a bit specific, I realize. Tour guides for sight-seeing buses and museums would use it a lot, if you can imagine.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.