Select the option that expresses the given sentence in active voice.
She was laughed at by all her friends.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Explanation
The correct answer is option 4. i.e. “All her friends laughed at her.”
The original sentence is passive voice:
She was laughed at by all her friends.
To convert it to active voice:
Identify the agent (doer): “all her friends”
Identify the verb: “laughed at” (phrasal verb—“laugh at”)
Identify the subject being acted upon: “she” becomes “her” in object form
Arrange in active structure: Subject (all her friends) + simple past verb (laughed at) + object (her)
From grammar sources, the active equivalent is:
All her friends laughed at her.
Why the other options are incorrect:
“All her friends had been laughing at her.”
→ Past perfect continuous tense, not the correct simple past tense, and changes meaning.
“All her friends laugh at her.”
→ Present simple tense—not correct, since original was in past tense.
“All her friends had laughed at her.”
→ Past perfect tense (“had laughed”), not simple past; alters the temporal sense.