The correct direct form of the given sentence is: OPTION 1
She said to me, "Why were you smoking today?"
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Understanding the tense conversion:
- The reported speech in the indirect form ("She asked me why I had been smoking that day") is in the past perfect continuous tense ("had been smoking").
- When converting to direct speech, the past perfect continuous tense often changes to the past continuous tense ("were smoking") in the question form.
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Maintaining time expressions:
- The indirect form uses "that day," which in direct speech becomes "today" because it reflects the original time reference.
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Eliminating incorrect options:
- "She said to me, 'Why are you smoking today?'": Incorrect because the verb "are" suggests present tense, not past, which doesn't match the original indirect speech.
- "She said to me, 'Why you smoke today?'": Incorrect because it is grammatically flawed (missing auxiliary verb "did" or "were").
- "She says to me, 'Why were you smoking this day?'": Incorrect because "says" changes the reporting verb to present tense, which does not match the past tense context of the indirect speech. Also, "this day" is unnatural in English usage.
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