Reducing Relative Clauses with Participles (Intermediate)

This intermediate route practises two common ways to shorten relative clauses: present participles for active meaning and past participles for passive meaning. If the noun does the action, use the -ing form: "students who study here" becomes "students studying here." If the noun receives the action, keep the past participle: "the letter which was sent yesterday" becomes "the letter sent yesterday." The skill is choosing the direction of the action before you write the shorter phrase.

Do not reduce mechanically from the final verb alone. Ask whether the noun before the relative clause is doing the action or being affected by it. Active clauses such as who live, who work, and which contains become -ing phrases. Passive clauses such as which was written or which were damaged become past participle phrases. This exercise keeps the meaning of each original sentence while making it more concise, which is useful in formal descriptions and exam transformations.