Choose the correct reported construction(s) of the given sentence:
Dadi said to Kunal, “Why did you switch off your phone yesterday? How worried we all were!”
(A) Dadi asked Kunal why had he switched off his phone the day before and exclaimed that they had all been very worried.
(B) Dadi asked Kunal why he had switched off his phone the day before and exclaimed that they had all been very worried.
(C) Dadi said to Kunal that why he had switched off his phone the day before and exclaimed that they had all been very worried.
(D) Dadi asked Kunal why he had switched off his phone the previous day and exclaimed that they had all been very worried.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → (B) and (D) only
Changing a question and an exclamation into indirect speech:
| Change | Direct | Indirect | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reporting verb | said to Kunal | asked Kunal ... and exclaimed | The first part is a question, so “said to” becomes “asked”. The second part shows strong feeling, so it is reported with “exclaimed”. |
| Joining word | “ ” (quotation marks) | why ... that | The question word “why” itself joins the question. “That” joins the exclamation. |
| Word order | did you switch | he had switched | The question becomes a plain statement. “Did” is dropped, and the subject “he” comes before the verb. |
| Tense change | did ... switch, were | had switched, had been | “Did ... switch” is in the simple past. The simple past is formed with the past form of the verb (V2). After the past “said” it becomes the past perfect “had switched”. The past perfect is formed with had + past participle (V3). “Were” moves back to “had been” in the same way. |
| Pronoun change | you, your, we | he, his, they | Kunal is spoken to, so “you” and “your” become “he” and “his”. “We” means Dadi and the family, so it becomes “they”. |
| Exclamation to statement | How worried ...! | very worried | “How” and “!” are dropped. “Very” now shows the strong feeling. |
| Time word | yesterday | the day before (B) / the previous day (D) | The words are reported later, so “yesterday” becomes “the day before” or “the previous day”. Both are correct. |
| Full sentence | Dadi said to Kunal, “Why did you switch off your phone yesterday? How worried we all were!” | (B) Dadi asked Kunal why he had switched off his phone the day before and exclaimed that they had all been very worried. (D) Dadi asked Kunal why he had switched off his phone the previous day and exclaimed that they had all been very worried. |
Other question words like what, where and when join a reported question in the same way. Example: Mohan said to me, “Where did you park the car?” → Mohan asked me where I had parked the car.
(A) Dadi asked Kunal why had he switched off his phone the day before and exclaimed that they had all been very worried. — Incorrect.
- “Had he switched” keeps the question word order.
- In indirect speech the subject comes first.
- Correct form: Dadi asked Kunal why he had switched off his phone the day before and exclaimed that they had all been very worried.
(B) Dadi asked Kunal why he had switched off his phone the day before and exclaimed that they had all been very worried. — Correct.
- “Why he had switched” is in plain word order, and the tense moves back.
- “The day before” replaces “yesterday”.
(C) Dadi said to Kunal that why he had switched off his phone the day before and exclaimed that they had all been very worried. — Incorrect.
- “That why” puts two joining words together.
- A reported question takes “asked” and the question word alone.
- Correct form: Dadi asked Kunal why he had switched off his phone the day before and exclaimed that they had all been very worried.
(D) Dadi asked Kunal why he had switched off his phone the previous day and exclaimed that they had all been very worried. — Correct.
- “The previous day” means the same as “the day before”.
- All the other changes are right too.