Choose the correct reported speech conversion:
"I will submit my thesis tomorrow," Laila said.
Reported speech:
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: C. Laila said that she would submit her thesis the following day.
- Step 1: Apply backshift rules for direct to indirect speech with a past reporting verb ("said"): modal "will" shifts to "would", first-person pronoun "I" shifts to "she", and possessive "my" shifts to "her".
- Step 2: Shift the deictic time expression: "tomorrow" shifts to "the following day" (or "the next day"). The full reported statement is: "Laila said that she would submit her thesis the following day."
Answer
Laila said that she would submit her thesis the following day.
Why not the others: "she will submit... tomorrow" fails to backshift "will" and retains unshifted "tomorrow"; "would have submitted" incorrectly introduces conditional perfect; "Laila told that she submitted..." misuses "told" without an indirect object and retains "tomorrow".
Practise more Grammatical Structure, Rhetoric and Reading Skills.
Free questions with an explanation for every one, and full timed Thanawiya Amma (Egypt) mock tests.
More Grammatical Structure, Rhetoric and Reading Skills questions
- Choose the correct grammatical form to complete the sentence:
By the time the foreign dignitaries arrived in Alexandria yesterday, the symp… - Choose the sentence that correctly uses the second conditional:
- Identify the sentence written in the correct passive voice:
"The engineers are constructing a new bridge across the Suez Canal." - Select the correct relative pronoun:
The solar energy facility, _____ construction began in 2018, now powers hundreds of thousands of house… - Which of the following sentences correctly demonstrates negative inversion after "Scarcely"?
- Choose the correct tag question:
Neither of the two translation drafts is accurate, _____?