Choose the most appropriate reported construction of the following sentence :
She said to me, "Can you answer this question?" "No", I said.
Choose the most appropriate reported construction of the following sentence :
She said to me, "Can you answer this question?" "No", I said.
Solution
✅ Correct Option: 3
In reported speech, the question becomes an indirect question with 'asked... if', 'can' shifts to 'could', and 'this' becomes 'that'. The reply 'No' becomes 'I replied that I couldn't.' Option 3 makes both changes correctly; options 1 and 2 fail to backshift 'can', and option 4 wrongly reports agreement.
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2023: 19 June Shift 2