Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate option:
"How have you been, Mona?", asked Fred.
Fred asked Mona how ______________. [Intermediate]

• A. she was
• B. she had been
• C. was she
• D. had she been

Answer 1

The correct option is B she had been

While changing the speech from direct to reported speech, the tense changes one tense back. For example, if the direct speech is in present tense (and the reporting verb is in the past tense) then the indirect/reported speech will be in past tense.

Also, when the speech is indirect, the point of narrative also changes (from I to she/he and from my to his/her).

Option B: The given sentence is in the present perfect tense "have you been". Hence the reported speech will be in the past perfect tense 'had been'.

Also, the question form changes to statement form while reporting the speech: from 'have you been' to 'she had been'.

So, option B is correct.

Option A: 'She was' is in the simple past tense, whereas the direct speech is in present perfect. So, it should be in past perfect tense.

Option C: Similarly, 'was she' is also in simple past tense. The only difference is that it's in interrogative form ('she was' is in statement form).

Option D: 'Had she been' is in the interrogative form whereas the reported speech is a declarative statement.

Hence options A, C and D are incorrect.