Passive Construction

[salesh.aswani]

How is the sentence below a passive construction,

"in that workers with few or no technical skills have wages that are depressed"

I always thought sentences such as below would be considered passive,

"By the time John reached Cosco, Mary was done with her shopping and was on her way back to the Car."

The above sentence is passive as it uses "By the time John". If the sentence is to made active then the below will be the case,

"As John reached Cosco, Mary was done with her shopping and was on her way back to the Car."


Thanks,
Salesh.

[RonPurewal]

no, this is not anywhere close to what "passive voice" means. "By the time..." doesn't even have a verb, so it can't be "active" or "passive" (which are qualities of verbs).

what you need, at this point, is a basic understanding of what "active" and "passive" mean.
for that, you should just Google those terms, and read a few of the search results. that will give you a much more comprehensive sample of knowledge than anything we could write in a single forum post.