A sentence is provided in direct speech. From the four given options, choose the one that most accurately conveys the sentence in its corresponding indirect speech. Rita said, “I haven't eaten anything.”

Correct — C. The reporting verb said is past, so the tense inside the quotation moves one step back:

haven't eaten (present perfect)
→ hadn't eaten (past perfect)

The pronoun follows the speaker: I → she, for Rita. 'Anything' stays, and the conjunction 'that' opens the reported clause → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Rita said that she didn’t eat anything. — didn't eat is simple past. The present perfect moves back to the past perfect, and only had not eaten keeps the sense of 'up to the moment she spoke'.
• (b)
  Rita said that she hasn’t eaten anything. — hasn't eaten changes the person but not the tense. With the past reporting verb said, the standard conversion moves the present perfect back to hadn't eaten.
• (d)
  Rita said that she wasn't eating anything. — wasn't eating is past continuous, the backshift of 'I am not eating'. It describes what she was doing at that moment, not what she had done up to then.

When the reporting verb is past (said, told, asked), each tense in the quoted words moves one step back:

present simple → past simple
present continuous → past continuous
present perfect → past perfect

Pronouns change to fit the reporter's viewpoint, so Rita's I becomes she.

Key facts

• After a past reporting verb, present perfect becomes past perfect: have eaten → had eaten.
• Present continuous becomes past continuous: am not eating → was not eating.
• In the standard conversion, simple past also moves to past perfect: 'I bought a new laptop' → he had bought a new laptop.
• A universal truth keeps its present tense: He said that the sun rises in the east.

Common traps

• Stopping at the simple past, didn't eat, instead of moving the present perfect to the past perfect.
• Changing I to she and forgetting the tense, which gives hasn't eaten.

No directly related past PYQ was found.