Here are examples of both.
Passive voice: “The deer was bothered by wolves.”
Active voice: “The wolves bothered the deer.”
Active voice takes the emphasis off of the deer. A good way I was taught to determine the difference is, if you can put “by zombies” at the end of the sentence, then it is passive voice.
Here is an example: “The homework was assigned by the teacher.”
Insert “by zombies.”
“The homework was assigned by zombies.” It still makes sense, so therefore it is passive voice.
But in active voice, it would be “The teacher assigned the homework.” If you added “by zombies” at the end of that sentence, it would not make sense.
This is what helped me memorize the difference so hopefully this can be helpful for you too.
