Change the following sentence from Assertive to Exclamatory:
It has been a difficult year.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → What a difficult year it has been!
Assertive to exclamatory with "What":
- When the feeling lies in an adjective + noun (a difficult year), the exclamation begins with What.
- Pattern: What + a/an + adjective + noun + subject + verb + !
| Change | Assertive | Exclamatory | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opening words | a difficult year | What a difficult year | What + “a difficult year”. |
| Word order | It has been a difficult year | What a difficult year it has been | Subject + verb: “it has been”. The tense (present perfect) and the meaning stay the same. |
| End mark | (.) | (!) | The sentence ends with an exclamation mark. |
| Full sentence | It has been a difficult year. | What a difficult year it has been! |
Example: It is a lovely day. → What a lovely day it is!
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: What difficulty has this year been! — Incorrect.
- It changes "a difficult year" into the noun difficulty, which alters the meaning.
- "has this year been" is question order.
Option 2: A difficult year indeed has it been! — Incorrect. It merely inverts the words with "indeed". There is no exclamatory word such as What or How.
Option 3: How difficult of a year it has been! — Incorrect. "of a" is not standard. With How the pattern is "How difficult a year it has been!", and the usual exclamation for adjective + noun begins with What.