Answer

Correct Answer : d ) Rahul said that he was very busy then.

The given sentence is in Direct Speech. Let us first understand the difference between the two forms of speech:

• Direct Speech: the speaker’s actual words are reported without any change.
• Indirect Speech: the speaker’s actual words are reported after a change.

When a sentence is converted from Direct to Indirect speech, some common rules are followed:

• Remove all inverted commas or quotation marks and end the sentence with a full stop.
• Add the Conjunction ‘that’ before the indirect statement.
• The pronoun changes from the first person to the third person.
• The verb and the adverb are changed to their respective past tense forms.

In the above sentence, the pronoun is “I” which is converted to “he”; the verb is “am”, which is converted to “was” and the adverb “now” is changed to “then”.

The option that converts the given sentence correctly as per the above rules is option D. All the other options can, therefore, be eliminated.

Hence, (D) is the correct answer.

This question is asked in various competitive exams including SSC CGL, SSC CHSL, SSC MTS, SSC CPO, etc. In order to understand how to solve this kind of question, one needs to practice regularly and keep oneself updated.

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