Change the following from active to passive: People can seldom access archived manuscripts without clearance.

Question

Change the following from active to passive:

People can seldom access archived manuscripts without clearance.

1. A. Archived manuscripts can seldom being accessed without clearance.
2. B. Archived manuscripts could seldom be accessed without clearance.
3. C. Archived manuscripts can seldom be accessed without clearance. (Correct answer)
4. D. Archived manuscripts are seldom able to be accessed without clearance.

Correct Answer

Option C — Archived manuscripts can seldom be accessed without clearance.

Detailed Solution & Explanation

The correct answer is Archived manuscripts can seldom be accessed without clearance..

Key Points

• Converting to the passive keeps the tense and the modal unchanged: *can access* becomes *can be accessed*.
• The object *archived manuscripts* becomes the subject, and the vague agent *people* is dropped, as it adds nothing.
• This gives: Archived manuscripts can seldom be accessed without clearance.

Additional Information

• The other options each break a rule: *can seldom being accessed* is ungrammatical, *could* shifts the tense unnecessarily, and *are seldom able to be accessed* replaces the modal with a clumsy paraphrase.
• The general pattern for modal passives is modal + be + past participle — *must be signed*, *should be reviewed*, *may be withdrawn*.
• The adverb *seldom* keeps its mid-position, sitting after the modal and before the auxiliary *be*, exactly as it sat after the modal in the active version.