The student said, "I am taking extra classes so that I can improve my grades before the finals." The most appropriate indirect form of the given sentence is:
Correct answer: D. The student said that he was taking extra classes so that he could improve his grades before the finals.
- A. The student said that he was taking extra classes so that he can improve his grades before the finals.
- B. The student said that he had taken extra classes so that he can improve his grades before the finals.
- C. The student said that he had been taking extra classes so that he could improve his grades before the finals.
- D. The student said that he was taking extra classes so that he could improve his grades before the finals.
Explanation
With a past tense reporting verb, am taking becomes was taking and can becomes could, while I becomes he and my becomes his. Option a forgets to change can, and option c changes the tense too far to had been taking.
This question appeared on the UHS MDCAT 2026 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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