She said, "What a lovely dress it is."[Choose the correct indirect speech:]
Correct answer: B. She exclaimed that it was a lovely dress.
- A. She exclaimed that it is a lovely dress.
- B. She exclaimed that it was a lovely dress.
- C. She exclaimed that what a lovely dress it was.
- D. She exclaimed what a lovely dress it is.
Explanation
Indirect speech is speech that tells you what someone said but does not use the person's actual words instead it is a style of third-person narration. However, when we report things, we usually change the tense by moving it one step back so a sentence in the present tense is reported in the past tense and a sentence in the present continuous is reported in the past continuous. Hence the correct answer is B.
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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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