Choose the option that is the most appropriate conversion of the following sentence into Direct Speech.
He said that while he had been writing the report, his laptop suddenly shut down.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
The original sentence is in indirect speech, using the past perfect continuous ('had been writing') and simple past ('suddenly shut down'). When converting indirect speech back to direct speech, the tense is shifted back in time.
The past perfect continuous tense in indirect speech typically reverts to the past continuous tense in direct speech ('was writing').
The simple past tense in indirect speech either remains simple past or reverts to present simple, depending on context.
In this case, 'suddenly shut down' is an event that occurred in the past relative to the time of speaking, so it remains in the simple past tense.
Option ‘B’ correctly follows these changes.