Change the following sentences into indirect speech:

He said to the judge, "I did not commit this crime."

Question

Question

This question was previously asked in

SSC GD Constable Memory Based Test (27 Jan 2023 Shift 1)

Answer 1

The correct answer is 'He told the judge that he had not committed that crime.'

Key Points

The given sentence is an assertive sentence.
While changing the narration of an assertive sentence, we need to follow steps -
- The reporting verb said changes to told. ( This is because we use told when we normally say who is spoken to which in this case is the judge. In other assertive sentences which does not have a direct personal object, the reporting verb said remains unchanged.)
- The conjunction 'that' is used in place of commas and inverted commas.
- The pronoun I is in first person and should be changed to third person he.
- The verb did not is in present tense form and is changed to past tense had not.
- This changes to that in the indirect speech.
Eventually, we will get the final sentence- "He told the judge that he had not committed that crime."
So, option 3 is the correct answer.