Select the option that expresses the given sentence in reported speech.
The old man said, “I was walking in my garden at six o’clock.”
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Explanation
The correct answer is Option 3 i.e. The old man said that he had been walking in his garden at six o’clock.
The given sentence is in direct speech, to convert this sentence into indirect speech we need to follow the following points:
- Inverted commas will get omitted and 'that' will be used.
- In assertive sentences which does not have a direct personal object like in the given sentence, the reporting verb 'said' remains unchanged.
- In the reporting speech, the past continuous tense 'was walking' is changed to past perfect continuous tense 'had been walking'.
- The first person pronouns I and me in the direct speech should be changed to third person he and his respectively.
After following these steps, we got the indirect speech as: The old man said that he had been walking in his garden at six o’clock.
Hence, the correct answer is Option 3 i.e. The old man said that he had been walking in his garden at six o’clock.