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 professor remarked that students needed to submit their papers before Friday.
- (a)“Students need to submit their papers before Friday,” the professor remarked.
- (b)“Students needed to submit their papers before Friday,” said the professor.
- (c)“Submit your papers before Friday,” the professor instructed.
- (d)“You were to submit your papers before Friday,” said the professor.
Answer
Why
Correct — A. Going from indirect to direct, undo what reporting did. After the past verb remarked, the verb need in the professor's words was shifted back to needed. In direct speech it returns to need.
Nothing else moves.
Students stays in the third person, as the reported sentence gives it.
Before Friday stays, and remarked can stay as the reporting verb → option (a).
Why the others are wrong
- (b)“Students needed to submit their papers before Friday,” said the professor. — Keeps the backshifted needed inside the quotation marks. Those are meant to be the professor's own words at the time, when the requirement was present: need.
- (c)“Submit your papers before Friday,” the professor instructed. — Turns a statement into a command addressed to the students. The indirect sentence reports a remark about what students needed to do, not an order, so the sentence type and the reporting verb both change.
- (d)“You were to submit your papers before Friday,” said the professor. — Changes students to you and needed to 'were to'. The reported sentence speaks of students in the third person, and 'were to' states an arrangement, not a need — still in the past tense.
Concept
Indirect to direct is backshift in reverse. Past becomes present (needed → need), would becomes will, and past perfect becomes the past or present perfect. The reporter's pronouns go back to the speaker's.
Everything the backshift did not touch stays put — here students, their papers and before Friday.
The sentence type must survive the conversion: a reported statement comes back as a statement in quotation marks, not as a command.
Option (c) tempts because a professor's remark about a deadline sounds like an instruction. But remarked + a that-clause reports a statement, so a command form changes what was said.
Key facts
- Indirect to direct reverses the backshift: needed becomes need, would becomes will.
- A reported statement (remarked that…) returns as a statement inside quotation marks.
- Words the backshift did not change, such as before Friday here, stay the same in direct speech.
Study next
Common traps
- Keeping needed inside the quotes because it is in the given sentence — direct speech gives the speaker's own tense.
- Choosing the command version because the remark sounds like an instruction — a that-clause after remarked reports a statement.
The same reversal is keyed at 15 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.23, where reported wished goes back to 'I wish to speak with the manager'.
12 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.23 offers the same trap as option (c) here: the command 'Follow deadlines strictly' is offered for a reported statement, and the key keeps the statement.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.