Select the option that expresses the given sentence in direct voice. The old man, with a nostalgic smile, said that he had visited that small town many times in his youth.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
The original sentence uses the past perfect tense ('had visited') in reported speech, which indicates an action completed before another past action. To convert this to direct speech, the past perfect tense generally backshifts to the simple past tense ('visited') to maintain the temporal relationship to the speaker's past youth. Additionally, 'that small town' in reported speech becomes 'that small town' in direct speech, and 'his youth' becomes 'my youth' to reflect the first-person perspective of the speaker.