<p>OK I would like this question to be explained grammatically. It is from improving sentences. Thanks.</p>
<p>(Differing only slightly from the Greeks were the Roman theaters, which) were often freestanding rather than part of a hillside.</p>
<p>a)same
b)Differing only slightly from Greek theaters, Roman theaters
e)The Greek theaters differed from the Roman theaters only slightly, where they</p>
<p>Correct answers is B. I know it sounds better, but isn't the passive voice always wrong?</p>
<p>The problem here isn’t with voice. The original contains a faulty comparison. It compares the Roman theatres to the Greeks (the people). Imagine if you wrote a sentence like: “I prefer the music of Mozart to Beethoven.” You want to compare Mozart’s music to Beethoven’s music, but right now it’s set up so that the music of Mozart is compared to Beethoven (the person). One way to fix that sentence would be: “I prefer the music of Mozart to that of Beethoven.”</p>
<p>Similarly, B fixes that problem by clearly comparing the Roman theatres to Greek theatres.</p>
<p>E is awkwardly phrased, “where” is used incorrectly, and the sentence also contains an ambiguous pronoun (“they”).</p>
<p>No, the passive voice isn’t always wrong. You want to avoid it because it dulls your writing, but in this case there isn’t even a way to change the original into active voice since you’re describing the Roman theatres using adjectives. It’s not like you can change “were freestanding” to “freestood” or something.</p>
<p>OK that makes sense thanks.</p>
<p>“were freestanding” is not passive. There is no passive voice in the sentence.</p>