Select the correct option for the Direct Speech conversion of the sentence below. She posited that the narrative would have achieved greater cohesion had the author maintained a single focalisation.

Correct — B. The reported sentence is a third conditional with an inverted if-clause: had the author maintained means if the author had maintained, and the result is would have achieved.

Past perfect and would have are not shifted forms, so conversion leaves them unchanged.

Direct speech needs only a reporting verb, said for posited, and the quoted words as they stood → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  She said, "If the author maintains a single focalisation, the narrative will achieve greater cohesion." — maintains ... will achieve is a first conditional, a real possibility in the future. The original describes an unreal past, since the author did not keep a single focalisation, so the meaning changes.
• (c)
  She said, "The narrative will achieve greater cohesion if a single focalisation was maintained by the author." — will achieve turns the unreal past into a future prediction, and was maintained by the author switches the condition to the passive. The reported sentence has neither change.
• (d)
  She said, "Had the author maintained a single focalisation, the narrative must achieve greater cohesion." — must achieve changes the result. The original says what would have happened in an unreal past, while must achieve states a present necessity, so the kept condition, had the author maintained, no longer matches it.

A third conditional describes a past that did not happen: had the author maintained a single focalisation, the narrative would have achieved greater cohesion. The speaker is saying the author did not.

In reported speech, past perfect and would have do not shift, because there is no earlier tense to move them to. Direct and indirect speech therefore carry the same verb forms.

Focalisation, in narrative theory, is the point of view through which a story's events are presented.

Key facts

• Third conditional: had + past participle in the condition, would have + past participle in the result.
• Inversion replaces if: had the author maintained = if the author had maintained.
• Past perfect and would have stay unchanged between direct and indirect speech.
• Posit means to put forward as a basis for argument.

Common traps

• Undoing a backshift that never happened, turning would have achieved into will achieve as options (a) and (c) do.
• Keeping the inverted had but changing the result clause, as option (d) does with must achieve.

No directly related past PYQ was found.