I had an English exam a couple of weeks ago and one of the questions asked us to highlight an active sentence in a poem and then change it into a passive version.

The only option in this poem was:

**"Lefties deserve much respect"**

The so-called correct answer was/is:

**"Much respect is deserved (by lefties)".** 

I am a native-speaker studying to be an English teacher in Belgium. In Flemish it is very common to use a passive sentence when we would use an active sentence (and vice-versa). 

As a native-speaker the sentence sounds completely wrong but I do not have the technical expertise to explain why to the teacher. The only thing I can find about using deserve in the passive tense is when it lends a passive meaning to a following -ing form. I am using Michael Swan's book. I did get the 'answer correct', but it used valuable time - which could of been better used elsewhere. 

This has literally been bugging me non-stop since, please help! 

Thanks, 

GB