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The clerks are trained to provide customers with exceptional service.

Active:Someone (unknown) trains the clerks to provide customers with exceptional service.

to provide customers with exceptional service : complement of clerks
Implied subject of to provide customers with exceptional service: clerks

The knowledge is interpreted to be consistent with established ideas in our mind.

Active: Someone/Something(unknown) interprets the knowledge to be consistent with etablised ideas in our mind.

to be consistent with established ideas in our mind: complement of knowledge
Implied subject of to be consistent with established ideas in our mind :knowledge

The cost of production is included to calculate the revenue.

Active: Someone (Unknown) includes the cost of production to calculate the revenue.

to calculate the revenue: telling purpose of including the cost of production
Implied subject of to calculate the revenue : Someone (unknown)

Is my understanding above correct?

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  • To those voting to close, I don't see this as a proof-reading exercise. It seems like an attempt to understand how the passive/active constructions work, with clear attempts to solve the problems first.
    – fred2
    Commented Mar 26, 2019 at 14:48

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I think in two of your three cases (the first and last) there is a technical way to convert exactly to the active voice (which you have achieved correctly), and then there is what I would call a 'real world' way in which one might say the sentence. In the middle example, I think you have it wrong.

Rather than say 'Someone/something (unknown)', the usual way to talk of an indeterminate subject is to use 'one'. Usually only a real person can train people.

One trains the clerks to provide customers with exceptional service.
We train the clerks to provide customers with exceptional service.

In the second example I am using 'we train' in a generic sense which has a similar sense to 'one trains'.

In the real world, if looking for the active, I'd say:

The clerks train to provide customers with exceptional service.

Technically, you can argue this isn't exactly the active version of the first sentence, as we're going from someone else training the clerks to the clerks training themselves. But the way the verb 'train' works, this would be fine. Everybody would understand that the clerks are being trained by somebody.

The cost of production is included to calculate the revenue.

In this case I think you probably have about the best solution available:

One includes/we include the cost of production to calculate the revenue.

Finally:

The knowledge is interpreted to be consistent with established ideas in our mind.

Because of the use of "our", we know who is doing the action, so there is no need to use 'someone/something/one'.

We interpret knowledge to be consistent with established ideas in our mind.

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  • Thank you for the answer, is my understanding of the understood infinitive subject correct?
    – tsai zi
    Commented Mar 27, 2019 at 14:29
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To (re)create an active sentence, you have to provide what is called an agent.

For example: The dog was given a bath. With an agent: The dog was given a bath by me.

Sometimes, the agent(s) are implied as the poster has shown in all the sentences so there is no need to repeat them.

[minor correction: someone includes, with an s]

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  • Thanks, I have corrected the mistake , is my understanding of those three understood infinitive subjects correct?
    – tsai zi
    Commented Mar 27, 2019 at 14:33

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