The following items have a sentence in direct or indirect speech with four options. One of the options converts the direct or indirect speech into indirect or direct correctly. Select the correct option and mark your response on the Answer Sheet. Convert from direct speech to indirect speech: Nitin said to his brother, "What a beautiful painting it is ?"
B. Nitin wondered before his brother that it was a beautiful painting
The given sentence is in direct speech and the reported speech ("What a beautiful painting it is ?") is an exclamatory sentence expressing admiration or wonder. To convert it into indirect speech, the following rules are applied: 1. The reporting verb "said to" changes to a verb expressing exclamation or wonder, such as "wondered" or "exclaimed". 2. The conjunction "that" is used to connect the reporting clause with the reported clause. 3. The exclamatory sentence is transformed into an assertive sentence (i.e., "it is a beautiful painting"). 4. Since the reporting verb is in the past tense, the present tense "is" in the reported speech changes to the past tense "was". Evaluating the given options: Option (1) is incorrect because it incorrectly retains "what" after the conjunction "that". Option (3) is incorrect because it fails to change the tense of the verb "is" to "was". Option (4) is incorrect because it treats the sentence as a yes/no question by using "whether". Option (2) correctly applies all the rules, changing the tense to "was" and converting the exclamation into an assertive statement. Answer: Nitin wondered before his brother that it was a beautiful painting
Related: General Ability — English · All PYQ Banks