Report what is claimed without taking the blame for it. Learn the grammar of distance.
By C1 you already handle the ordinary passive. The advanced skill is different: it is using the passive to report what people say, think and claim while keeping yourself, the writer, at a careful distance. This is the grammar of the news bulletin, the academic paper and the cautious official statement — the grammar that lets you present a claim as a claim, not as a fact you personally guarantee.
Two engines drive this unit. The impersonal report — It is thought / believed / claimed / reported that... — opens with an empty it and states the view without naming who holds it. The personal report — She is thought to know... / He is said to have left... — lifts the subject to the front and follows it with a to-infinitive. Master the switch between them, add a perfect infinitive for earlier events, and you gain the objective, non-committal tone that marks writing as unmistakably C1.
The impersonal pattern begins with a "dummy" subject it, a passive reporting verb, and a full that-clause. Because no one is named as the source, the writer reports the idea while distancing themselves from it. This is the workhorse of academic and journalistic prose: It is thought that..., It is widely believed that..., It has been claimed that...
| Pattern | What it signals | Example |
|---|---|---|
| It is said/thought that + clause | a general, unattributed belief | It is thought that the old bridge is 300 years old. |
| It is reported/claimed that + clause | a news claim the writer won't guarantee | It is reported that the big match has been cancelled. |
| It was believed/alleged that + clause | the same, set in the past | It was believed that the earth was flat. |
The personal pattern fronts the subject and follows a passive reporting verb with a to-infinitive — never a that-clause. Use to + base when the reported situation is at the same time as the report, and to have + V3 when it is earlier. This is where most C1 errors live, so learn the two shapes precisely.
| Form | Time relation | Example |
|---|---|---|
| is said to + base | same time as the report (state/habit) | She is said to know three languages. |
| is said to be + -ing | happening now, in progress | The fox is believed to be hiding in the woods. |
| is said to have + V3 | earlier than the report | The explorers are said to have left the village. |
The same two patterns work with a wide family of reporting verbs — expect, know, understand, allege, report, consider, presume — and in the past tense. When the reporting verb is past, the perfect infinitive still marks an even earlier event. The passive is chosen precisely because it lets you drop the agent: you need not say who alleged or expected anything.
| Pattern | Nuance | Example |
|---|---|---|
| was alleged to + base | a past accusation, source withheld | He was alleged to be the one behind the prank. |
| was alleged to have + V3 | a past accusation about an earlier act | She was alleged to have hidden the trophy. |
| is expected/understood to + base | a cautious present forecast or reading | The river is expected to rise sharply. |
Alongside the be-passive, informal English uses get + V3. The get-passive is more dynamic and often carries a nuance of something sudden, accidental or unfortunate happening to the subject — frequently beyond their control. It belongs to speech and lighter registers, not to the most formal academic prose.
| Get-passive | Nuance | Example |
|---|---|---|
| got caught | sudden, unfortunate, to the subject | He got caught in the storm. |
| got soaked / got lost | an accident, unplanned | Three hikers got lost in the fog. |
| get picked / get chosen | a change the subject undergoes | She finally got picked for the team. |
Reporting structures are a writer's main tool for objectivity. Instead of committing to a fact, you frame it as reported, expected or alleged — and you drop the agent so no single person is named. This is how academics and journalists stay cautious and fair. Choosing the right frame is a matter of how much you are willing to vouch for.
| You want to... | Reach for | Example |
|---|---|---|
| state a shared view neutrally | It is generally agreed that... | It is generally agreed that the plan failed. |
| report an unverified accusation | is alleged to have... | The rival team is alleged to have used an extra player. |
| forecast cautiously | is expected / is likely to... | The crowd is expected to reach a record. |
These are the errors that still surface in otherwise strong C1 writing. Each is a reporting slip, not just a form slip. Audit every report you write against these rows.
| Wrong ✗ | Right ✓ | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| He is said that he speaks six languages. | He is said to speak six languages. | the personal report takes a to-infinitive, never "that". |
| She is believed to left the village. | She is believed to have left the village. | an earlier event needs the perfect infinitive "to have + V3". |
| It is thought the plan to be risky. | It is thought that the plan is risky. | the impersonal "it" pattern needs a full that-clause. |
| The runaway dog was got caught at dawn. | The runaway dog got caught at dawn. | there is no "was got"; use "got" or the be-passive "was caught". |
| Experts are expected the river to fall. | The river is expected to fall. | in the passive report the object is promoted to subject. |
The editor of the school newspaper and a young reporter argue over how to word a big story about the missing sports trophy. Read it twice and watch the reporting choices work as a system: an impersonal report for an unattributed claim, a personal report with a perfect infinitive for an earlier act, a passive to withhold the source, and a get-passive for the sudden misfortune.
Choose the correct answer. — 10 questions, each one is marked instantly. Questions get harder as you go.
Learn the words of attribution and evidence, then report a contested claim of your own.
Report a contested claim — a school rumour, a local legend or myth, a sports rumour, a science mystery. Write 8 sentences and use at least 8 of the words above. Make your reporting structures do real work.
Sentence starters (you can begin with these):
Değerlendirme öğretmenin tarafından yapılacak. (Your teacher will review your task.)
Read the feature, then work through the five tasks.
Skilled readers prepare before they start. Before you read, think about these three questions (you do not need to write the answers):
Words to spot (from the Speaking section): allege · corroborate · substantiate · disseminate · ostensibly · hearsay · unsubstantiated · scrutinise
For decades, the ruins beneath the desert plateau have been claimed to be the remains of a legendary trading capital. When the discovery was first announced, it was reported around the world as one of the great finds of the century. Recently, however, the claim has been called into question, and the site is now said to be at the centre of a bitter academic dispute.
To appreciate why the announcement caused such a stir, it is worth recalling how little had previously been known about the region. For generations the plateau was thought to be little more than a windswept expanse of sand and rubble, of interest only to the occasional surveyor. Local traditions, it is true, had long spoken of a fabled market city buried beneath the dunes, yet such stories were routinely dismissed by specialists as folklore rather than testimony. When aerial and satellite imagery is said to have revealed a grid of unnaturally regular shadows beneath the surface, that indifference is reported to have given way to feverish speculation almost overnight. Expeditions were hastily assembled, permits were sought, and a plateau that had been ignored for a century was suddenly described as the most promising archaeological prospect in the entire region.
The lead archaeologist is believed to have identified the city from a single inscription. It is thought that the carving names a ruler mentioned in ancient chronicles; consequently, the team argued, the settlement must be the lost capital itself. The interpretation was widely disseminated before it had been independently checked.
Much of the controversy, it should be stressed, turns on questions of method rather than of honesty. The inscription is said to have been recovered from a collapsed chamber that had already been disturbed in antiquity, and its precise archaeological context is therefore difficult to reconstruct. Radiocarbon dating, it is pointed out, cannot be applied to the stone itself, while the organic material found alongside it is thought to have been contaminated by later intrusions. Supporters of the identification maintain that the style of the lettering is consistent with the period in question; sceptics counter that comparable scripts are known to have remained in use, with little discernible change, for many centuries. Because the object is believed to have been removed before the surrounding layers had been properly documented, both sides are effectively reasoning from an incomplete record, and each is convinced that the missing evidence would ultimately have vindicated its own position.
Critics are far less convinced. The inscription, they allege, is ostensibly royal but may in fact have been added centuries later. Whereas the original report presented the identification as certain, rival scholars insist that it has never been corroborated. One specialist is said to have dismissed the evidence as "hearsay dressed up as history."
The stakes, it must be said, extend well beyond a single settlement. Were the identification to be confirmed, the map of the region's ancient commerce would have to be substantially redrawn, since a capital of that magnitude is thought to have anchored a network of routes stretching across several modern frontiers. Museums are reported to be competing quietly for the right to display any artefacts recovered, and at least one government is said to have anticipated a surge in cultural tourism should the story hold. Precisely because so much has been invested in the outcome, sceptics warn, the temptation to see confirmation where none exists is thought to be unusually strong. A discovery of this kind, they argue, is all too easily shaped by the hopes of those who make it, and expectation can quietly harden into conviction long before the underlying evidence has been secured.
Nor, it seems, is the royal reading the only interpretation on offer. Several epigraphers have proposed that the carving may commemorate a merchant guild or a provincial dignitary rather than a sovereign, in which case the grander identification would collapse entirely. Others suggest that the settlement, though undoubtedly ancient, is more likely to have been a modest caravan halt than a fabled capital: prosperous, perhaps, but hardly the metropolis of legend. It has even been proposed that two distinct sites, occupied in different eras, have been mistakenly conflated into a single, conveniently spectacular narrative. What unites these rival accounts is a shared insistence that the most exciting explanation ought not to be preferred simply because it is the most exciting. Extraordinary claims, the critics repeatedly remind us, are ordinarily expected to rest on extraordinary evidence, and that standard, they contend, has manifestly not yet been met.
The affair has also come to be treated as a cautionary tale about the pressures that now shape research. The initial discovery is thought to have been publicised through newspapers and television interviews long before any careful study had appeared, and the resulting excitement is said to have made a calm reassessment all the more difficult. Attention, it is widely acknowledged, tends to flow towards headline-grabbing finds, and admitting a mistake in public can feel far harder than making a bold claim in the first place. Some observers have gone so far as to argue that the field itself is partly to blame, having quietly come to reward speed and spectacle over patience and proof. Whether or not the site is eventually vindicated, the episode is expected to be cited for years as an illustration of how readily a compelling story can outrun the facts that are supposed to support it. Younger researchers, in particular, are said to be watching the outcome closely, uncertain whether caution or boldness is the wiser path.
The dispute matters because reputations and funding depend on it. The findings are expected to be re-examined by an independent panel next year, and every claim will be scrutinised in detail. Notwithstanding the doubts, the excavation continues, and further inscriptions are believed to have been buried nearby. Nonetheless, until the central claim can be substantiated, the "lost city" is likely to remain, in one critic's words, a story that was told before it was proven.
Choose the correct answer.
Are these sentences true or false, according to the text?
Complete each sentence with ONE word from the text. Mind the reporting structure (been / to / is / have).
Write your answer in your own words. These questions are not marked automatically.
1. Why does the writer use so many reporting structures ("it is thought", "is believed to have") instead of stating the discovery as a fact?
2. What is the difference between the way the original report and the critics treat the inscription?
3. The article ends by calling it "a story that was told before it was proven." What do you think this means?
Find these connectors in the text — each one appears at least once: however, consequently, whereas, notwithstanding, nonetheless, because, before, until. (You will reuse these same C1 connectors in the Writing section.) Note them down, then check.
Rewrite a blunt, committed account into cautious reported speech, then drill the structures with 10 quick questions.
Below is a blunt account that states everything as fact and names names. In a school newspaper this would be reckless. Your job is to re-tell it cautiously, turning each committed statement into a reported, distanced one.
Sentence starters (you can begin with these):
Değerlendirme öğretmenin tarafından yapılacak. (Your teacher will review your task.)
10 quick questions on advanced passive and reporting. Each one is marked instantly. Questions get harder as you go.
Write and submit an objective report on a contested claim; your teacher will review it.
At B2 you linked ideas with however, therefore, although, whereas. At C1 you gain a sharper, more formal register with connectors such as moreover, consequently, notwithstanding, whereas and nonetheless. In a balanced report they let you weigh a claim against its counter-evidence without ever sounding partisan.
| Connector | Use it to... | Example |
|---|---|---|
| moreover | add a stronger, further point | The source is anonymous. Moreover, the claim is unproven. |
| consequently | state a formal result or effect | No proof was offered; consequently, the report was retracted. |
| notwithstanding | concede "in spite of" (very formal) | Notwithstanding the doubts, the study was published. |
| whereas | draw a direct contrast between two ideas | Supporters call it certain, whereas critics call it hearsay. |
| nonetheless | say "even so", after a concession | The claim is disputed; nonetheless, it is still cited. |
| however | contrast between two sentences | The story spread fast. However, it was never verified. |
See the difference — the same claim, written two ways:
| Committed & reckless ✗ | Reported & balanced C1 ✓ |
|---|---|
| The captain took the trophy. Her friend helped her. They swapped the labels. The prize-giving was cancelled because of them. | The captain is alleged to have taken the trophy, and it is claimed that her friend helped her. The labels are said to have been swapped; consequently, the prize-giving was cancelled. Notwithstanding these claims, nothing has yet been corroborated. |
A strong C1 report does not blurt out a verdict. It presents a claim as reported, weighs the evidence for and against it, and reaches a cautious conclusion — all while keeping the writer's own voice measured and fair. The skeleton stays the same; you change the content, not the shape:
| Part | What to write | Structures to reach for |
|---|---|---|
| 1. The claim | state what is claimed, source withheld | It is claimed / believed that... ; is said to be... |
| 2. The case for | report the supporting argument | is thought to have... ; is expected to... |
| 3. The case against | report the doubts and counter-evidence | is alleged to... ; has not been corroborated |
| 4. Cautious verdict | reach a measured, hedged conclusion | until it is substantiated... ; is likely to remain... |
Write a balanced report on a contested claim — a science mystery, a local legend, a historical puzzle, or a rumour at your school or club. Report it like a careful journalist: attribute nothing you cannot prove, and keep your own judgement measured.
Değerlendirme öğretmenin tarafından yapılacak. (Your teacher will evaluate your writing.)
Mixed questions from the whole unit, then check what you can do.
14 questions: grammar + vocabulary + reading + practice. Each question is marked instantly.
Tick what you can do now. Honest answers help your teacher.
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Oturum kontrol ediliyor...