Prizes were awarded to the winners is active voice or passive voice
Prizes were awarded to the winners.
Since the prizes did not do the awarding, this is in passive voice. If it were in active voice, the people or person who awarded the prizes would be the subject of the sentence.
Study this: https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/passive-voice.htm
The sentence "Prizes were awarded to the winners" is in the passive voice.
To determine if a sentence is in the active or passive voice, it is important to identify the subject and object in the sentence:
Active Voice: The subject of the sentence performs the action. The focus is on the doer of the action.
Passive Voice: The subject of the sentence receives the action. The focus is on the receiver of the action.
In the given sentence, the subject is "prizes" and the object is "winners." However, in the passive voice, the subject usually comes after the verb "to be" (in this case, "were"). Therefore, the sentence is in the passive voice, indicating that the "prizes" (subject) received the action of being "awarded" (verb) to the "winners" (object).