Final answer:
To convert 'Tell the students to assemble in the hall' into passive voice, you would say 'The students are to be told to assemble in the hall.' Active voice places emphasis on the action doer, while passive voice emphasizes the action itself. The use of passive voice should be appropriate to the context and desired focus.
Step-by-step explanation:
When changing the sentence "Tell the students to assemble in the hall" into the passive voice, we adjust the sentence structure so that the subject is being acted upon rather than performing the action. In passive voice, a form of the verb to be is used along with the past participle of the main verb. Following these guidelines, the sentence in passive voice becomes: "The students are to be told to assemble in the hall."
Understanding the passive voice can be observed in examples like the active voice sentence, "We conducted a survey of 300 students at a large state university in the southern United States," which in passive voice becomes: "A survey of 300 students was conducted at a large state university in the southern United States." Here, the action of conducting the survey is what's emphasized, not the doer of the action.
Utilizing active voice tends to create stronger, clearer, and more concise sentences. However, passive voice can be useful when the doer of the action is unknown or when the focus should be on the action itself. It's also regularly used in formal or scientific writing for objectivity. Hence, while passive voice can at times result in wordiness, it is necessary in certain contexts for clarity or emphasis.