Direct and Indirect Speech Quiz

What Are Direct and Indirect Speech?

When we quote a speaker word for word, we are using direct speech: Ravi said, "I am learning English." The exact words sit inside quotation marks, and the tense belongs to the moment of speaking. When we pass the same message on later in our own words, we are using indirect speech, also called reported speech: Ravi said that he was learning English. The quotation marks disappear, a connecting word like that or if appears, and three things shift together — the tense takes one step back, the pronouns follow the new speaker and listener, and the time and place words point to the new moment and place.

Those three shifts are the whole game, and they are also exactly where exam questions are set. A distractor almost always fails one shift only — the tense is right but the pronoun is wrong, or the pronouns are right but now was never changed to then. This quiz trains you to check all three shifts in every option, which is why the correct answer here is never a matter of feel: it is the only sentence in which every rule fires at once.

Say or Tell? The First Conversion Rule

The most frequently lost mark in reported-speech exercises is the choice between say and tell. The rule is short: tell needs a person, say never takes one directly. So she said to me becomes she told me, while plain she said carries no personal object at all — she told that he was happy and she said me that he was happy are both wrong. Once the reporting pair is fixed, the pronouns follow the people: the speaker I becomes he or she, the listener you becomes me, him or her, and every possessive travels with its owner.

The Tense Backshift Table

The backshift is the engine of reported speech. When the reporting verb is past — said, told, asked, ordered — every tense inside the quote moves one step back into the past: present simple to past simple, present continuous to past continuous, present perfect to past perfect, will to would, can to could, may to might, must and have to to had to, and shall (with I or we) to would. The past simple goes one further, to the past perfect, and the past continuous becomes the past perfect continuous. The single exception worth a mark every year: universal truths and scientific facts do not backshift — the earth still moves round the sun even after the teacher said so.

Time, Place and Near–Far Word Changes

Every word that points at the moment or the place of speaking must be re-pointed when the sentence is reported later somewhere else. The safe habit is to look for the near words — now, here, this, these, today, tonight, tomorrow, yesterday, next week, ago — and swap each one for its far partner: then, there, that, those, that day, that night, the next day, the previous day, the following week, before. Forgetting one of these is the cheapest way to lose the mark, because the sentence sounds almost right — which is exactly why examiners love this trap.

Reporting Questions – If, Whether and the Lost Do

Reported questions follow the statement rules, not the question rules, and that single idea fixes most errors. A yes or no question takes asked plus if or whether; a wh-question keeps its question word — what, where, when, why, how, who. In both cases the helping verb do, does and did disappear, the subject returns in front of the verb, the question mark is dropped and the tense backshifts as usual. So Where do you live? becomes She asked me where I lived — never where did I live, which keeps the question order the statement rules forbid.

Commands, Requests, Advice and Offers

Imperatives change personality in reported speech: the bare verb becomes a to-infinitive after a reporting verb that names the force of the sentence. Choose the verb by listening to the tone: a sharp order is ordered or commanded, a please is requested, guidance is advised, a danger signal is warned, a plain instruction is told, and Shall I…? offers something, so the verb is offered. Negative commands insert not before the to-infinitive, and Let us… suggestions become suggested followed by a gerund. Every pattern below is drilled in Part 5 of the quiz.

Exclamations and the Way Back to Direct Speech

Exclamations are reported with exclaimed plus a plain that-clause: What a beautiful garden it is! becomes She exclaimed that it was a very beautiful garden, because what a and how fold into very and the exclamation frame dissolves. The interjections carry the emotion and must be translated too: Hurrah becomes exclaimed with joy, Alas becomes exclaimed with sorrow. Part 6 then flips the whole quiz around: you see the reported sentence and rebuild the direct speech, restoring the pronouns to the original speakers, pushing every tense forward again, giving the time words back their near forms and returning the words to quotation marks — the single best way to prove you understand every rule in the reverse direction.

How to Convert Any Sentence in Six Steps

Run this checklist whenever a reported-speech conversion appears — in this quiz or in an exam paper.

1. Fix the reporting pair. Heard a listener? Use told + person. No listener? Use said. A question? Asked. A command? Ordered, requested, advised, warned, told.
2. Step the tense back. Present to past, will to would, can to could, may to might, past simple to past perfect — unless the sentence states a universal truth.
3. Move the pronouns. I follows the speaker, you follows the listener, my and your follow their owners. Read the reported sentence back and check every pronoun has a clear owner.
4. Re-point time and place. Now, here, today, tonight, tomorrow, yesterday, next week, ago and this all move to their far partners: then, there, that day, that night, the next day, the previous day, the following week, before, that.
5. Fix the shape. Statements take that; yes or no questions take if or whether; wh-questions keep their word; commands become object + to-infinitive; question marks vanish and word order becomes statement order.
6. Read the whole sentence aloud. The correct conversion sounds like one calm sentence; a distractor sounds like a question hiding inside a statement, or a past hiding inside a present.

Reported Speech in Exams

Reported speech appears in school tests, SAT writing, bank exams and the grammar sections of IELTS and TOEFL preparation — usually as a conversion item or as a multiple-choice question where three options fail exactly one rule. The examiners know the classic slips: told without a person, kept question order, a now that never became then, a can that stayed can. Because the wrong options are built from those slips, a candidate who checks the three shifts — tense, pronouns, pointers — removes three quarters of the options in seconds.

• Scan for the reporting verb first. Said, told or asked decides the pattern before you look at any tense.
• Hunt the pointers. Circle now, here, this, today, tomorrow, ago and check each one has been re-pointed in the option you choose.
• In writing tasks, control your own shift. IELTS and TOEFL essays that quote a source must keep the backshift consistent — one slip costs the same as any other grammar error.
• Practise with a timer. Try to finish all 60 questions on this page in under fifteen minutes.
• Review mistakes. Write every sentence you missed in a notebook with the wrong conversion crossed out, and repeat the quiz after a day.

7-Day Study Plan for Reported Speech

Fifteen to twenty minutes a day is enough. Follow this plan and the conversions will start to feel automatic.

1. Day 1Play the full quiz without help and note every question you missed.
2. Day 2Copy each missed question onto a flashcard: the wrong conversion crossed out in red, the correct one in green.
3. Day 3Drill say and tell: report five things your family said yesterday, choosing said or told correctly each time.
4. Day 4Drill the backshift: take five present-tense sentences and step each tense back, then check them against the table above.
5. Day 5Drill questions and commands: report three questions and three requests you heard today, then reverse them back to direct speech.
6. Day 6Teach the three-shift rule — tense, pronouns, pointers — to a friend without notes; teaching is the fastest test of mastery.
7. Day 7Reset the quiz, play again and compare your score with Day 1.

Memory Tricks for Reported Speech

• One step back. Said is past, so every tense inside the quote steps one chair back: write to wrote, will to would, can to could.
• Tell needs a person. Picture tell holding someone by the hand — told me, told Ravi. Said stands alone, or reaches out with to: said to me.
• Questions lose their disguise. In reported speech a question stops looking like a question: no do, no inversion, no question mark — just if, whether or the wh-word and calm statement order.
• Near becomes far. Now, here, this, today all stretch away from the speaker: then, there, that, that day. If it points at the speaking moment, it must move.
• Ago slides to before. Ago measures from the speaking moment, so once the moment moves, ago becomes before — the same word, the other direction.
• Hurrah = joy, Alas = sorrow. The interjection translates into the reporting phrase: exclaimed with joy, exclaimed with sorrow.
• Use spaced repetition. Repeat the quiz after one day, three days, one week and one month.

Classroom and Home Activities

Teachers, tutors and parents can turn this quiz into a longer learning session with these simple ideas.

The Ten Most Common Reported-Speech Errors

Marking stacks and exam boards keep finding the same ten offenders. Here they are with their fixes — every one of them is drilled somewhere on this page, so a perfect score here is direct evidence that none of them will reach your exam paper.