Select the option that expresses the given sentence in indirect voice.
He said to her, 'I must tell you that I was not the one who broke the vase, as I was not even in the room when it happened.'
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
The original sentence in direct speech is: 'He said to her, 'I must tell you that I was not the one who broke the vase, as I was not even in the room when it happened.''
To convert this to indirect speech, several changes are done:
The reporting verb 'said to her' becomes 'told her'.
Conjunction 'that' is used to introduce the reported speech.
The pronoun 'I' changes to 'he' to match the speaker.
The modal verb 'must' changes to 'had to' in reported speech when expressing obligation.
The simple past tense 'was not' changes to the past perfect continuous 'had not been' or past perfect simple 'had not been' depending on context, but here 'had not been' is appropriate.
The simple past tense 'broke' changes to the past perfect 'had broken'.
The simple past tense 'was not even' changes to the past perfect 'had not even been'.
The simple past tense 'happened' changes to the past perfect 'had happened'.
Option B correctly applies all these changes.