Identify the sentence among the following which is punctuated correctly:
Correct answer: C. The teaching staff asked the principal, "What time would the meeting start?"
- A. The teaching staff asked the principal what time the meeting would start.
- B. The teaching staff asked the principal: "What time would the meeting start"?
- C. The teaching staff asked the principal, "What time would the meeting start?"
- D. The teaching staff asked the principal; "What time would the meeting start?"
Explanation
A direct quotation is introduced by a comma, begins with a capital letter and keeps its question mark inside the closing quotation marks. A colon or semicolon cannot introduce quoted speech in this way, and placing the question mark outside the quotation is wrong because the question belongs to the quoted words. The first option is grammatically fine as reported speech, but it is not punctuated as a quotation.
This question appeared on the UHS MDCAT 2025 paper, which you can sit online with every answer explained.
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