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I made the following sentences. I think it’s best to say “Children are easily influenced”. But I am not sure if I should use the active or passive voice in this construction.

  1. Children are easy to influence.
  2. Children are easy to influence with ads.
  3. Children are easy to influence by ads.
  4. These instructions are easy to follow by students.
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  • Hi, welcome to ELL! Please keep in mind that asking us to pick the right one for you is considered a proofreading request and thus off topic here. In order to help prevent the closure of your question, I have edited your question slightly so it is more in-line with our question policy. Please always tell you what you think and why you think some sentences are grammatical/ungrammatical. – Eddie Kal♦ Jan 18 at 20:55
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Children are easily influenced is a general comment, but your first three sentences imply the speaker's intention to influence children (in (2) and (3) the speaker would probably be someone in the advertising business).

(4) would be better expressed as These instructions are easy for students to follow.

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  • Thanks. Do you think sentence 2 is more natural than sentence 3? – joy2020 Jan 17 at 12:48
  • Yes, probably. Easy to influence with but easily influenced by. – Kate Bunting Jan 17 at 14:35

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