Choose the correct indirect speech form of the following sentence.
They said, "They had a very good habit."
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
Conversion from direct to indirect speech:
Tense Shift: When converting from direct to indirect speech, a sentence in the past simple (e.g., "had") shifts to the past perfect ("had had"). The first "had" acts as the auxiliary verb, while the second is the past participle of the main verb.
Pronoun Retention: The third-person plural pronoun "They" remains unchanged in indirect speech as it refers to a group external to the speaker and the listener.
Reporting Verb: While the original sentence uses "said," "told that" is often used in multiple-choice questions to indicate the reporting of a fact to an audience, though "said that" would also be grammatically acceptable here.
Structural Change: The quotation marks are removed, and the conjunction "that" is introduced to connect the reporting verb to the reported clause.
Indirect speech: They told that they had had a very good habit.