Question

Fill in the blank with a suitable option:
Edison said, “genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
Edison said that genius __________ one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
A) Is
B) Was
C) Be
D) Will be

Answer 1

Hint:Indirect speech or reported speech is usually used to talk about the past, so, normally changes the tense of the words spoken.

Complete answer:
Let’s examine the meaning of the given options -
Option A) Is – is the correct answer because ‘is’ is an auxiliary and it is used for the simple present tense. Thus, this is the correct answer. As the given sentence is universal truth/fact and it always remains in the simple present tense even if it is asked to convert it into indirect speech. Thus, considering this option as the best appropriate answer.
Option B) Was – is an incorrect answer because ‘was’ is an auxiliary which is used to form in the sentence in the simple past tense. As explained in option A universal truth/fact does not change in any form it should always be in simple present tense. However, the use of ‘was’ is inappropriate in the sentence. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.
Option C) Be – is an incorrect answer because ‘be’ defines the state of mind of the person or the subject and ‘be’ doesn’t define any specific tense. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.
Option D) Will be – is an incorrect answer because ‘will be’ is used to form simple future tense and if ‘will be’ used with a verb then it will follow future continuous tense. Thus, the use of ‘will be’ in the sentence is inappropriate. Thus, this is an incorrect answer.

Hence, the correct answer is option ‘A’.

Note: As the given sentence “genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” is a universal fact/truth, so, it should always remain in the simple present tense even in the indirect speech. So, Option A is the most appropriate answer as compared to any other option.