Explanation:
First let's look at the difference between active and passive voice:
"Active voice means that a sentence has a subject that acts upon its verb. Passive voice means that a subject is a recipient of a verb's action."
1) The coconut cream pie was gobbled down by the starving Scouts.
What's the subject? The coconut cream pie. What is it doing? Nothing. Its <em>the scouts </em>that are preforming the verb of the sentence. In order to find active voice, we must make that Scouts the subject of the sentence.
<u>The starving scouts gobbled down the coconut cream pie</u>.
2)The little village was drenched by a blinding downpour.
Let's try a different approach. What is the verb? Drenched. Now what is doing the drenching? The down pour. Whatever noun is preforming the verb will be the subject of an active voice sentence. So . . .
<u>A blinding downpour drenched the little village</u>.
In short, in active voice, the main subject must be doing the main verb
Answer:
I'm not going to give an explanation for all of these, but I encourage you to try some of these yourself using the methods introduced above i.e find the main verb and from there find what is doing the verb, or find the main subject and create the sentence around it so it's doing the action.
3) The angry city council slashed the budget.
4) The swarming fans toppled the football goal posts.
5) The silver moonbeams caressed the pale rose petals
6) The governor issued a stern warning to striking workers
(Note: Here, striking is not the verb of the sentence but an adjective to describe workers. Could also be a gerund, I'm not sure. Either way, it's not the main verb.)
7) The playful ponies pranced upon the field.
8) The stead beat of drums filled the air.
9) Through the fog and mist, the old light house sent a beacon of assurance.
(Note: Through the fog and mist is a prepositional phrase and could be put at the end of the sentence or the beginning)
10) Mrs. Hawkins told stories of hardship and suffering.
(Note: suffering is part of the preposition and thus is not the main verb)
