Select indirect speech"I have been to Spain," he told me.
Correct answer: C. He told me that he had been to Spain
- A. He told me that he could visit Spain
- B. He told me that he has visited Spain
- C. He told me that he had been to Spain
- D. He told me that he has been to Spain
Explanation
Option (c), "He told me that he had been to Spain," is the correct choice. It properly changes the present perfect "have been" to the past perfect "had been," which is appropriate for indirect speech since it reflects that the action occurred before the time of speaking
This question appeared on the ETEA MDCAT 2013 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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