Question

Report the following sentence :

“Why did you come late?” the teacher asked James.

• A. The teacher asked James why you did come late.
• B. The teacher asked James why he had come late.
• C. The teacher asked James why he come late.
• D. The teacher asked James why he had came late.

Answer 1

Answer:

B. The teacher asked James why he had come late.

• The original sentence is a direct question in the past tense: “Why did you come late?”

• When converting to reported speech:

  1. Change “you” → “he” (referring to James).

  2. Change the tense from simple past (“did come”) → past perfect (“had come”).

  3. Remove the question format; use “asked” + object + clause.

So, the sentence becomes:
The teacher asked James why he had come late.

Other options are incorrect because:

• (A) → “you did come” is wrong in reported speech; tense and pronoun are not correctly changed.

• (C) → “he come” is grammatically wrong.

• (D) → “he had came” is wrong; “came” should be “come.