A sentence is provided in indirect speech. From the four given options, choose the one that most accurately conveys the sentence in its corresponding direct speech. The judge said that justice must be served at any cost.
- (a)“Justice should be served at any cost,” said the judge.
- (b)“Justice must be served at any cost,” the judge said.
- (c)“We serve justice at any cost,” said the judge.
- (d)“One must serve justice,” the judge said.
Answer
Why
Correct — B. Converting indirect to direct speech means restoring the speaker's own words. The reported clause is 'justice must be served at any cost'.
Must has no past form, so reported speech can keep it as it is. Nothing in this clause was shifted, so the original words are the clause itself.
Option (b) keeps must, the passive 'be served' and 'at any cost', and adds only the quotation marks.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)“Justice should be served at any cost,” said the judge. — Swaps must for 'should'. Should is advice, must is necessity, and nothing in the reported sentence weakens the judge's words.
- (c)“We serve justice at any cost,” said the judge. — Changes both voice and meaning. The report is a passive with must, while 'We serve justice' is an active statement with no modal at all.
- (d)“One must serve justice,” the judge said. — Keeps must but rewrites the rest as active 'One must serve', and drops at any cost, which is part of what the judge said.
Concept
Indirect-to-direct conversion runs the usual changes in reverse: backshifted tenses move forward again, pronouns return to the speaker's own, and the words go inside quotation marks.
Modals need care. Would, could and might can be backshifted forms of will, can and may. Must has no past form, so a reported must can stand exactly as spoken.
Here the reported clause shows no shift at all, so the direct speech is that clause word for word.
Whether the quotation is followed by 'said the judge' or 'the judge said' decides nothing, since both orders are correct after a quotation. The modal and the voice decide.
Key facts
- Must has no past form. In reported speech it can stay must or become had to.
- Should expresses advice or expectation. Must expresses necessity or obligation.
- After a quotation, 'said the judge' and 'the judge said' are both correct.
Study next
Common traps
- Rejecting (b) because it ends 'the judge said' rather than 'said the judge' — both orders are correct.
- Picking (a) on the belief that must becomes should — that changes the meaning, it does not convert the speech.
The same conversion is keyed at 12 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.23: 'The manager told the staff that deadlines must be followed strictly' goes back to the quotation 'Deadlines must be followed strictly', with must kept.
The reverse direction is at 21 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.23, where 'You must work hard' is reported as 'He said that I had to work hard'.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.