Question

Choose the indirect speech of the given sentence:
               The teacher said, “The higher I went, the cooler it was.”
(a)The teacher said that the higher he goes, the cooler it was.
(b)The teacher said that the higher he went, the cooler it was.
(c)The teacher said the higher you go, the cooler it is.
(d)None of the above.

Answer 1

Hint: While converting direct speech to indirect speech, the simple past tense should be changed to past perfect. The first-person pronouns change to third person pronouns and vice versa.
Complete answer: Indirect speech is a means of expressing the content of statements, questions or other utterances, without quoting them explicitly as is done in direct speech. For example, He said "I'm coming" is direct speech, whereas He said he was coming is indirect speech.
Let us look at the options we have and choose the one which follows all the rules of conversion of direct to indirect speech.
(a)“The teacher said that the higher he goes, the cooler it was.” Is incorrect as the tense has not been changed. The sentence is almost the same. Thus, option ‘a’ is incorrect.
(b)“The teacher said that the higher he went, the cooler it was.” Is incorrect again. ‘goes’ has been changed to went, but the sentence after ‘went’ remains the same. It has not been changed to past perfect tense. Thus, option ‘b’ is incorrect.
(c)“The teacher said the higher you go, the cooler it is.” Is incorrect as the meaning of the sentence has been altered here. This statement was made by the teacher about his own experience. Thus, the usage of ‘you’ is incorrect in this sentence. The sentence is the indirect speech of the given sentence. Thus, the option ‘c’ is incorrect.
As all the options have been eliminated. These do not follow the rules and hence, all are incorrect. Therefore, option d ‘None of the above’ is the correct answer.
Note: Remember that indirect speech does not change the meaning of the sentence as in direct speech. So, option ‘c’ would obviously be incorrect.