Select the most appropriate indirect form of the given sentence.
The lady said to the plumber, “Why didn’t you come last week? The RO machine has been making some noise for the last ten days.”
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
The correct answer is option 1 i.e. The lady asked the plumber why he hadn’t come the previous week and told him that the RO machine had been making some noise for the last ten days.
- This option is correct because firstly the person has been changed to the third-person perspective 'he'.
- Secondly, the tense portrayed is the corresponding past form of the occurring event in the statement. "Didn't you" is replaced with "he hadn't" and "has been" replaced with "have been".
- The sense made in both instances (question and answer) are still the same. Finally, as this sentence is an interrogatory one the quotations have been replaced with 'asked'.
- The rest of the options fail to denote the correct tense form or have changed the meaning of the sentence by using inappropriate words such as 'scolded'.