Select the option that expresses the given sentence in reported speech.
The policeman said, “It is clear that this is the work of a professional robber”.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
The correct answer is Option 1 i.e. The policeman said that it was clear that that was the work of a professional robber.
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 verb 'is' will be changed to 'was' when converting into indirect speech.
- Next, the word 'this' in the reporting speech will be changed to 'that' when converting into indirect speech.
After following these steps, we got the indirect speech as: The policeman said that it was clear that that was the work of a professional robber.
Hence, the correct answer is Option 1 i.e. The policeman said that it was clear that that was the work of a professional robber.