Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word.
“Shall I call a taxi? He asked me if ___________ a taxi.
A. He should call
B. I should call
C. Should he call
D. He will call

Answer 1

Hint:The above sentence has missing words. Make sure the answer selected is appropriate grammatically and is in the right tense. Repeat the sentence a few times after fitting in each option to make sure it is appropriate grammatically.

Complete answer:
Option A) He should call - is the right option. It suits the sentence grammatically and is in the right tense too. When a sentence is transformed from a direct to an indirect speech, there will be a transformation in the tenses too.

Option B) I should call - is an incorrect answer because when reported it doesn’t mean the same as the direct speech.

Option C) Should he call - is an incorrect answer as it doesn’t make sense grammatically and is inappropriate.

Option D) He will call - is an incorrect answer as it doesn’t make sense grammatically and is not in the right tense. Hence this option is inappropriate.

Hence the correct answer is option ‘A’.

Note:Speeches are of two types. They are direct and indirect speech. Direct speech is quoted and is in the same way as phrased by the original speaker. Example: He put down his bag and said, “It is too heavy.” Indirect speech is reported in a way that it is re-phrased by the narrator to express what was told by the speaker. Example: He put his bag down and said that it was too heavy. In the above sentences, the reporting verb in direct speech (said) is in past tense, so the reporting verb in indirect speech (said) should also be in the past tense. ‘Is’ in direct speech is modified to ‘was’ in indirect speech. ‘That’ is the linker word. An interrogative sentence when transformed would generally have ‘if’ or ‘whether’ as a linker word. Transformations like these are to be made when a direct speech is modified to an indirect speech.