He said to us, ''Why are you all sitting about there doing nothing?'' — choose reported speech option

Question

He said to us, ''Why are you all sitting about there doing nothing?'' — choose reported speech option

1. A. He asked us why are all we sitting about there doing nothing.
2. B. He asked us why are we all sitting about there doing nothing.
3. C. He asked us why we were all sitting about there doing nothing. (Correct answer)
4. D. He asked us why were we all sitting about there doing nothing.

Correct Answer

Option C — He asked us why we were all sitting about there doing nothing.

Detailed Solution & Explanation

The correct answer is He asked us why we were all sitting about there doing nothing..

Key Points

• Reported speech: "Why are you all sitting...?" → He asked us WHY WE WERE ALL sitting about there doing nothing.
• (Tense shift: are → were; word order becomes statement order.)

Additional Information

• Converting a question to reported speech drops the question mark and inverted commas, restores statement word order, and shifts the tense back one step.
• Here *are you sitting* becomes *we were sitting*: the pronoun moves from second to first person and the tense from present continuous to past continuous.
• Wh-questions keep their question word; yes/no questions take *if* or *whether* instead.
• The reporting verb changes with the sentence type: *said* for statements, asked for questions, *told/ordered* for commands and *requested* for requests.