Choose the appropriate Assertive sentence for the following sentence:
What a piece of work is Man!
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Man is a wonderful piece of work.
Exclamatory to assertive:
An exclamatory sentence with What a or How expresses a strong feeling about a quality.
| Change | Exclamatory | Assertive | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Word order | What a piece of work is Man | Man is a ... piece of work | The normal order is used again: subject + verb + complement (“Man is a ... piece of work”). |
| Opening words | What a | wonderful | The feeling carried by “What a” is expressed by a suitable word such as “wonderful”, great or very. “What a piece of work is Man!” admires man. |
| End mark | (!) | (.) | The exclamation mark becomes a full stop. |
| Full sentence | What a piece of work is Man! | Man is a wonderful piece of work. |
Example: What a clever boy he is! → He is a very clever boy.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: Man is a piece of work. — Incorrect. The admiration in "What a" is dropped. It becomes a flat statement.
Option 3: Man is very wonderful. — Incorrect. "a piece of work" is lost, and "very wonderful" is poor usage, since wonderful already means very good.
Option 4: Man was a wonderful piece of work. — Incorrect. "was" changes the present tense of the original ("is Man") into the past.