He said to me, May you succeed in life!" The indirect form of the sentence is:
Correct answer: B. He prayed that I might succeed in life.
- A. He said to me that may you succeed in life
- B. He prayed that I might succeed in life.
- C. He prayed that he might succeed in life
- D. He prayed that you may succeed in life
Explanation
The correct answer is Option B: 'He prayed that I might succeed in life.' In indirect speech, 'may' is often changed to 'might' to reflect the past tense, and 'said' is replaced with 'prayed' to reflect the wishful intention. The pronoun 'you' is also changed to 'I' to match the perspective of the person being addressed. Other options either retain the direct speech format or incorrectly alter the pronoun and tense.
This question appeared on the ETEA MDCAT 2012 paper, which you can sit online with every answer explained.
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About Direct and Indirect Speech
Direct speech gives a speaker’s exact words, whereas indirect speech reports the meaning without quotation marks. Questions cover reporting verbs, pronoun changes, tense backshift, time and place expressions, punctuation, and the transformation of questions, commands and requests, including cases where backshift is not required.
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